Monday, November 8, 2010

Macroecono-Moose

Apparently Sarah Palin is just now discovering that the United States has a "central banker", and that central banker (which is apparently called "The Federal Reserve") is a non-partisan entity designed to control monetary policy through "interest rates" and other means in order to affect inflation as a method of controlling the economy's throttle.

Professor Sarah Palin's Speechwriter (Ph.D. in Insert Your Own Moose Pun Here) seems to think the Fed messing with monetary supply and inflation is unheard of and nobody would ever do that.

We shouldn’t be playing around with inflation. It’s not for nothing Reagan called it “as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.” The Fed’s pump priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared, and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed’s proposals “clueless.” When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it’s time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist. We don’t want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It’s the only way we can get our economy back on the right track.

That loud murmur you're hearing is a thousand economists all going "Ho boy" at the exact same time.  Look, that's like saying, literally, that the Fed shouldn't do anything because the Weimar Republic existed at some point in the past.  You can't say "banks won't lend" and then say "But they have no incentive to because of government interference" when the cost of lending is dirt cheap.

Finally, the difference between Sarah Palin's opinions on Helicopter Ben and mine is, I freely admit it's just my opinion and that I'm a blogger.  Sarah Palin on the other hand is most likely running for President.  Somebody doing that should have policy positions better than "The Fed is the government and government is bad!" while running for government and having been elected to government.

Just saying.

Also, there is the little matter of Palin having no friggin' clue what the hell she's talking about on this subject.  if she really thought the issue was important, she'd stop treating it as a campaign talking point.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So is the double standard you constantly display against Sarah Palin misogyny or reverse racism?

Zandar said...

What double standard is that? Saying how I don't agree with her position and how I believe she's uninformed has nothing to do with her race or sex.

It has everything to do with the fact I believe she's uninformed on the major policy issues.

Go whine on the many, many Sarah Palin sites out there.

Unknown said...

Can't be an actual Sarahtard, must be one of your usual Paultard trolls.

The structure of a leading question that offers a false choice between two self-damaging answers is WAAAAY beyond the intellectual capacity of the C4P crowd.

Anonymous said...

"So is the double standard you constantly display against Sarah Palin misogyny or reverse racism?"

I have my own question.

Do you have any clue how fatuous this comment is to anyone who's not totally insane, or just trolling till their mom finds out they're still awake and it's a school night?

Zandar said...

*snerk*

Zandar said...

If your choices for economic commentary are the several econ blogs I have in the blogroll, Barry Ritholtz, Paul Krugman, Yves Smith, Duncan Black, Felix Salmon, Nouriel Roubini, etc.

And on the other side is Sarah Palin,

Honestly, who's going to be more knowledgeable?

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