"One of the most amazing stories right now is the failure of either President Obama or Congress to address the monetary crisis. This is the crisis Joe Six-Pack feels when he fills his car with gas or fetches up at the supermarket checkout — or when he has a hard time finding a job.
Even as our money doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to just a few years ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke keeps insisting that inflation is low. Yet the hottest story about Obama’s naming of a new Fed chief has been what a New York Times dispatch called the decision’s “gender undertones.”
The Times broke that “story” a few weeks ago. It was writing about the conflict between those who favored a man, Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary, and those who favored a woman, Janet Yellen, the current Fed vice chairman. Summers withdrew from consideration Sunday, having lost the support of his own party, and it looks like Yellen is now the frontrunner.
No one that I know has a problem with a woman heading the Fed; it would be a dramatic crack in the glass ceiling. But where is the debate about the role of the Federal Reserve itself in creating the Great Recession and the crisis that has kept unemployment above 7 percent for Obama’s entire presidency? The figure would be far worse if record numbers of Americans hadn’t entirely given up on looking for work."...
I don't think I would totally blame the Fed for the Great Recession but they don't seem to be helping. But the question always is maybe without the props are we worse or surviving. I wish they would stop meddling for six months and see what develops.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
