The Bernank

Recently, Ben Bernanke, with what I imagine was nary a smirk on his face, asserted that his actions at The Fed have had nothing to do with the present instability in Egypt. Oh, no, The Bernank offered, it's all the growth in emerging markets that has caused agricultural commodities to double and triple in price in less than a year's time. In not so many words, The Bernank claimed that the astronomical rise in wheat prices, for example, couldn't be linked in any way to The Fed's (going on two years running) purchase of toxic bad bets, more euphemistically known as assets.

That response highlights perfectly the choice we are faced with regarding what The Bernank, as a quasi public official, must be, namely an epic scale liar or just the world's most powerful imbecile. I opt for the former, as I simply don't think it's possible that, whatever his ideological blinders may be, The Bernank actually believes what he spouts, but, instead, knows he can utter such perfidiousness with impunity as he has a free pass from those in the mainstream media who are allowed to ask questions of him. Egyptian food prices haven't gone up to levels inspiring political revolution due to, as he stated, the state of the Egyptian currency-which in the aftermath of the nation's recent instability is admittedly weaker-they've gone up because food prices everywhere have risen dramatically.

And that shitty reality has met head on with the fact that Macmoud Average, whose yearly income is some fraction of Joe Average's, must, as a result, now use a far greater portion of his meager income, just to put pita on the table.

In the meantime, the great lie, that The Bernank is at some mild pains to elide, is that the money that The Fed has exchanged for the aforementioned assets has not gone into proper bank lending, but rather into bond, equity, and commodity speculation to a degree that has had a material effect on food prices globally. The emerging markets piffle offered up by The Bernank is, just that, patent rubbish, and he must know that, but, being a Central Banker, a U.S. Central Banker in particular, he is, as his predecessor Arthur Burns observed, under no obligation to tell the truth. And so we are under no particular obligation not to see The Bernank and any number of his many fellow travelers, tarred and feathered and run out of town, as it were, on a rail.

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