Mr Bernanke Lied

To the Editor:

On Sunday evening, much of the nation anticipated CBS’s 60 Minutes segment with chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. I was absolutely disgusted listening to him flat out lie to the American public. This man deceived the public and 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley, let him slide. His first lie was regarding the Fed’s “printing money.” Printing money is a term to describe creating money. Bernanke said, “We are not printing money.” Mr Bernanke if you’re not printing (aka creating) the money, where is the Fed getting it? Come on Ben, we know you’re not physically printing cash, but you are creating it which means you’re lying.

Second Mr Bernanke said he is 100 percent confident he can tighten monetary policy. This is another lie! The only way the Fed can tighten monetary policy is by selling bonds. For the past several years the Fed bought bonds at record high prices. Who in their right mind would by them at face value? Think about it, if the largest buyer of US government debt (the Fed) decides they no longer want the bonds, the only way they can entice buyers is to lower the prices. Lower bond prices mean higher yields which is the complete opposite of QE and QE2’s purpose. There is no chance the Fed will tighten, Bernanke knows this, and therefore he lied again.

For those who don’t know, Ben Bernanke scored a 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs. I assume the questions he missed were on economics and honesty.

Daniel M. Patti, CFP

84 South Main Street, Building C, Newtown      December 7, 2010