As much as I would like to think of Bernanke as a monster, I do suspect that he is probably a pretty decent guy in a very difficult position, and that he isn't free to set his own policies as his position would have us think.
I agree would love people who say he is doing a shyt job to say what they would do? Go back to a gold standard? There would be blood in the streets tomorrow! There is not easy or hard solutions to the problems the US faces, all they can do IMHO is kick the can down the road which is what Ben is doing. Certainly not a hero, but as a evil master minded villian he fails much
As a tool he does his job fantastically well but given what he knows and says I cannot say he's a decent guy. He's a very intelligent person but the compliments end there.
And if he had a heart & a thought of his own ,he wouldn't be in that position He position is 1 of a puppet ,what kind of respect can you give a puppet . I say shoot the messenger & the next guy might not pop his head up. If a gold backed currency will result in blood on the streets ,it will be the fat cats who get caught out
Everytime everyone talks about Bernanke they always seem to forget to mention Greenspan who presided over criminal proceedings for a much much longer timeframe and apparently got off scott free.
The country can't meet the interest payments on loans that it owes to overseas US bond holders? And if the default got really bad, I presume that the government would not be able to pay it's public servants, social security or medical benefits, military wages etc. Anyone with more knowledge about this?
Basically You would have one of the biggest and most advanced / equipped / experienced and so on .... army without any payment. Last thing that ANY politician wants to have all those battle-hardened men turned against them, it often ends bad Just one of many things, what default would do
When a country defaults...it's not like when a private citizen goes broke...where they declare bankruptcy and have their income garnished and assests seized. When a country defaults....it says to the foreigners whom owes it money... "Sorry...I'm not paying you back!" That's it! The country keeps paying it's social security obligations, public servant's wages etc and the citizenry keep paying their taxes, taking their kids to school etc. There are no international police or baliffs to throw a country in jail...no courts to garnish it's GDP... If the foreign debtors don't like it ..they can try to recover their lost money by siezing sovereign assets by force with their armed forces. But there's a couple of problems with this. The top 2 being..who's going to invade the US and take the Statue of Liberty, and most of the debt is owed to private businesses with no armed forces of their own. The only real drawback to a country defaulting on it's debt is; 1) it may be seen as a risky place to lend to, making borrowing a little more expensive, and 2) facing trade embargoes from countries that have been defaulted on. But once again whom would be stupid enough to become enemies with the U.S. and lock themselves out of the worlds richest economy. Essentially, there's no downside to the US if it defaults!
Yep, you're messing with fire when you don't pay the goons with guns. They might just turn onto the side of the average citizen and put a crimp in your revenue raising. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/s...state-government-millions-20110607-1fqid.html You don't have to go very far to see just how quickly government can come unstuck without their ability to enforce its will.
