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Time to End Fed’s Dual Mandate of Destruction

Let's pin the inflation tail on the big government/big Wall Street donkey.

Recent economic reports of Obamanomics have shown dismal GDP growth, rising jobless claims, an anemic dollar, and soaring inflation; all indications of stagflation.  There are two components to stagflation; high unemployment and high inflation.  The unemployment, along with the weak economic growth, is due in large part to Obama’s Keynesian fiscal policy of overtaxing, overspending, over-subsidizing, and over-regulating.  While the profligate spending and corporate welfare are also responsible in part for inflation and the devaluation of the dollar, the major culprit is Obama’s Keynesian monetary policy of near-zero interest rates and printing money (QE I and II).

Both reckless spheres of Keynesian economics are supported by corporate cronies on Wall Street who benefit from true “handouts to the rich” to the determent of the rest of us through price-hiking market distortions.  Unfortunately, there is no single silver bullet to ending the cumbersome socialist fiscal policy (although, a spending amendment would go a long way).  The pernicious monetary policy, however, can be eliminated through one act of Congress; ending the Federal Reserve’s mandate to control the economy (H.R. 245-Mike Pence).

In 1977, Congress vested the Federal Reserve with a dual mandate of stimulating the economy and job growth in addition to keeping a stable currency.  This has allowed the Fed to become a fourth branch of government by initiating its own stimulus policies of printing money.  These stimulus policies exacerbate the fiscal stimuli of the other branches of government by devaluing the remaining dollars that we own (non-borrowed money).

Hence, as much as Obama’s trillions in stimulus and bailouts have bankrupted the country, Ben Bernanke’s $600 billion monetary stimulus has attenuated the value of our remaining savings and spiked the cost of vital commodities across the world.  Additionally, their rash intervention in the credit market was one of the big culprits of the housing crisis.  Thus, while the Fed seeks to achieve a dual mandate of low unemployment and low inflation, they are ultimately inimical to both goals.  It’s time for House leadership to bring Mike Pence’s H.R. 245 to a floor vote and end the Fed’s overreach into our economy.

The same Wall Street Democrat corporate cronies who work tirelessly on behalf of bailouts and fiscal stimulus have also promoted and benefited from monetary stimulus.  This is our opportunity to stand with the majority of the country who are harmed by stagflation and stick a fork in big government and big Wall Street.

It’s also time for presidential candidates to get serious about this issue and articulate to the average voter how the deleterious policies of the Fed are a direct result of anti-free market intervention.  Sarah Palin has hit this early and often; others must follow suit.  Democrats have long planned to counter the populist outrage against big government with righteous indignation against the unpopular Wall Street power players.  The candidate who exposes the truth about Democrat corporate cronyism and explains its relation to the high cost of living, will be the next president.

Earlier this week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke asserted that low GDP growth and inflation will be “transitory.”  Republicans must show him that the only thing transitory in this era of perennial stagflation is his ability to destroy our economy.

COMMENTS

  • jaykali

    That song is playing over and over in my head.

    No one in the media ever questions the Keynesian model. I haven’t been around long enough to know when this sort of worked, I hear WWII as example but that seems to be a stretch. With Reaganomics we have something much more recent that has proven to be alot more successful than Obama’s Keynesian model. Also the Bush tax cuts had success of full employment though detractors will say it also increased the deficit…but no one seems to mention that Obama’s Stimulus added much more to the deficit than Bush or Reagan ever did. And their strategy led to economic recovery. I think it’s a stretch to tie the housing bust with Bushes tax cuts which were several years prior.

    I think I can sum it up as this, Reaganomics might be controversial to some (lefties) but it is still a model MANY actually want to mimic. No one on earth is going to use the Obama stimulus as a ‘success’ model for repeating the same experiment in the future. They will have to discredit Obama’s as not big enough, etc etc and point to some other ‘success’ story like WWI or something. And that should be an indication as to what a failure it is.

    I am starting to read up more on the Keynesian model, I would love to hear the so called ‘success’ stories which I haven’t heard from politicians or the media. All I’ve heard is how Republican policies are tax breaks for the rich and deprive America of ‘investments’ it needs. But I haven’t seen case studies where big deficit spending has led to prosperity. Certainly this wasn’t the case in the Clinton administration.

    Some could argue that the Clinton model of divided govt, somewhat higher taxes, reform, etc was the ticket for success and they’d have an argument at least since the budget was balanced.

    But as for hyper-spending + deficits (bc we HAD to evidently) – I think that experiment has been disproven for probably decades. I think doing a 800 billion dollar style deficit is definitely out of style.

    • Death_of_the_Donkey

      I am a big fan of Reagan and his economy, but there was quite a bit of good old Keynesian pump priming going on during those years as well. Virtually all deficit spending is Keynesian by nature and Reagan ran the biggest deficits during a peacetime economic expansion that we have ever seen. Couple that deficit spending boost and the Fed on a huge (and unprecedented) interest rate lowering (ie refinancing) path and you got an extremely robust economy. In other words, to answer your question, I think the deficit spending of the 80s is a great example of some Keynesian policies contributing to economic growth.

      • The_Gadfly

        “…deficit spending is Keynesian by nature and Tip O’Neil ran the biggest deficits during a peacetime economic expansion that we have ever seen.”

        Now, the rest of your history is pure bunk. Reagan was unable to his tax cuts as the one shot he wanted. Democrats in the House and Senate forced his to accept them in phases because “government couldn’t afford” higher cuts. During those first years there was a lot of pump priming that resulted in little or no job growth. It was only in the latter years after the tax cuts were fully phased in that job growth took off. In the interim, he stopped the so-called wage-inflation spiral by of all things, deregulating oil production. As oil prices fell, so did inflation. Add in the beneficial shot of adrenaline from standing up to the illegal air traffic controller strike and you get falling inflation.

        Reagan may not have gotten us everything he wanted, let alone what he wanted, but it was a darn site better than anybody else has done since Roosevelt.

        • Death_of_the_Donkey

          First, the economy took off when the Fed eased (and not a moment before). It had nothing to do with the tax cuts (they obviously contributed to the boom, but were hardly the cause). Second, the government component of GDP is responsible for a full 20% of the growth during those 8 years (under Clinton it was 6% by comparison). I am not bemoaning Reagan, as I believe that his optimism and attitude did more good for this country than any economic policy could have, but at least let’s look at the numbers in a fair context.

          As for the Tip O’Neil comment, you do not get to pick and choose what spending gets counted and what doesn’t. Reagan proposed huge increases in defense spending that were just as contributory to the deficits (and hence Keynesian) as all the spending O’Neil defended. Also, it is worth noting that Reagan kept the growth of non-defense discretionary to below the rate of inflation if I am not mistaken.

          • Adjoran

            They occurred mainly because he discovered the defense situation to be far worse than Carter’s briefings had admitted.

            O’Neill was certainly responsible for most of it, as he insisted upon increasing already bloated discretionary spending as his price for allowing the required accelerated rebuilding of defense. Already in 1979, Soviet overall military power had been ranked first in the world, ahead of the USA, by the respected independent military journal Jane’s.

            Reagan paid the blackmail, correctly judging the security situation to be dire and deteriorating and in need of emergency levels of funding, but it is not correct to describe what he chose out of reluctant necessity as some intented Keynesian stimulus.

            Reagan’s choices in these matters were widely criticized at home and abroad by our allies, and decried as provocative and dangerous by our adversaries, but proven to be absolutely correct and effective by events.

          • Death_of_the_Donkey

            First, deficit defense spending is just as Keynesian as non-defense spending. Second, Tip got nothing. One of Reagan’s biggest achievements was controlling the non-defense discretionary budget during his terms. I present to you real non-defense spending under Reagan:

            Reagan Real Non-defense

          • jaykali

            I will admit that I am a student of politics but I am still trying to get my mind wrapped around all this. I was a child when Reagan was president so I don’t have all of the background you all have.

            My understanding of Reagan is that he cut taxes, built up defense and got into deficit spending but grew the economy. I have read many a defense of Reagan policies and also critiques.

            My focus is on the alternative, which appears to be Obamanomics. I would define that as large deficit spending as a way to jump start the economy and then when the economy rebounds the growth will help pay off the spending that occurred. I think that’s more or less what we were sold and it hasn’t worked at all.

            The question I have is is there some big modern example of govt spending that did work? When the stimulus was sold I remember a lot of graphs and talks of ‘investments’ but I don’t recall them selling a similar type stimulus that was passed before that got the country out of a recession.

          • jaykali

            Which seems like a stretch as that was like 70 years ago. I am thinking there isn’t a great example of huge spending as stimulating the economy unless your example is Reagan’s defense spending.

            My contention that the baby stimulus Bush put together late in his presidency + Obama’s which total over 1 trillion did not stimulate anything and got us even deeper into debt. I think passing anything of this size in at least this decade is going to be impossible. I’d be surprised to see anything 1/4th of the size of the stimulus anytime soon.

          • The_Gadfly

            in the first years just like I said it did. And the sizes of his increases more than offset the sizes of what few cuts he did get.

            http://www.chadwickresearch.com/blog/2010/10/27/spending-under-congresses-and-presidents-part-ii/

  • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

    the 70′s kind of put a fork in Keynesian economics. Ever since then, they have tried to reserect other forms like “neo-Keynesians” in order to confront the inconvenient reality of stagflation.

  • kestrel

    Maintaining a stable dollar should be the Federal Reserve’s one and only job. It figures that the mandate was expanded under Carter and a congress containing Democrat majorities in both chambers (the senate had a filibuster-proof majority, not that they needed it). Thanks for bringing attention to this.

    • carolina

      at doing the ONE THING it should be doing correctly = maintaining a STABLE currency. Bernanke and his failed understanding of the depression is destroying our currency and slowing economic growth. I wonder what his ‘new’ theory will be when the current inflation is not “transitory”.
      Monetary policy and fiscal policy have to work together to support economic growth. Today we have the worst policies in both areas. The economy is slightly growing in spite of these bad policies.

  • YnotNOW

    Thanks, Horowitz, for highlighting this issue.

    The “dual” mandate of the Fed requires them to balance two opposite goals – stable money and economic growth. The public tends to only see the unemployment side, and forget that the stable money is the more important focus for long-term economic growth. And when the Fed eases monetary supply, in the hopes of stimulating employment in the short term, they risk inflation picking up and crushing economic growth (and therefore employment) in the medium or longer term. If their efforts do not have immediate effect, then they have complicated the recovery and have both problems happening at the same time – unemployment and inflation. Stagflation.

    The Fed should have a single mandate – stable money. Economy meddling runs too much risk of making things worse, instead of better.

    Mike Pence?s H.R. 245 may not be “sexy” or even interesting to most, but it is important.

  • Death_of_the_Donkey

    The Fed right now is not really going after employment anyways (and it is somewhat debatable if their policies could really impact employment in the short term at all). The Fed is primarily trying to recapitalize the banks right now through their policies and a secondary aspect of that is that due to the still weak economy, they do not feel that inflation is yet an issue (and if you look at anything besides food and fuel it isn’t). Finally, as Bernanke addressed in his conference, what exactly is the Fed going to do about supply/demand constraints in oil/food markets? Sure, they could raise rates and send us back into recession (thus reducing our demand), but that seems fairly harsh since the problem will just rear its head again as soon as we start to grow. When we begin to see those food and fuel costs seep into the broader economy is when the Fed will have to act, but not before.

    • The_Gadfly

      They are maintaining policies they know are potentially inflationary because the job numbers are so weak. They are maintaining loose money to prop up employment, knowing it will cause inflation down the road and knowing they will have to stomp on it when it starts. Yes, he couches it the argle-bargle of the policy wonk to obfuscate that they know they are priming an explosive bout of inflation, but they know they are setting up another inflation bomb.

      • Common_Cents

        It is to recapitalize the big banks on the backs of savers and inflation.

        If they had a real policy of targeting employment and economic engine they’d make capital available to small/regional banks to loan to small/med businesses, the economic engine of America.

        Instead, taxpayer money is being funneled to big money elites sloshing billions around in various assets, inflating prices, recycling the money into treasuries so the govt elites can spend even more. while nothing is done for average Americans.

    • Stan

      “…if you look at anything besides food and fuel it isn’t.” This is a joke, right? Or, are you saying that everything’s good, except for those of us that need to eat, and get to & from work, and run lights in our houses? Sorry, but for me, your argument fell to pieces right there.

      • steve010

        May 2010 550
        Jan 2011 700
        April 2011 757

        Only a 38% increase in less than a year. no inflation here.

        I hope barley and hops don’t skyrocket. My compatriot beer drinkers will go to the streets.

      • Death_of_the_Donkey

        American spends roughly 15% on food and beverages and 5% on fuel (of total expenditures). So, until that inflation begins to seep into either the other 80% of goods and/or wages, Bernanke can wait. Also, since inflation is a rate of change, you have to expect oil/food to continuously go up from here AND have to believe that they are going up because of an overheating US market (and not from a combination of BRIC growth, ethanol policies, and speculation) in order to justify a rate increase that would likely send us back into recession. Because if you are wrong and a rate hike doesn’t quell the prices, then you are left with an inflationary recession.

        • steve010

          now we explain it as an overheated BRIC growth. If you try to save money inflation kills you. If you put it into precious metals, you take the investment out of the economy. If you store food and commodities to offset price increases,it kills demand. How about letting the market work?

          • Death_of_the_Donkey

            When you put tax rates on cap gains/dividends at 15%, but keep interest taxes at your top marginal rate, that doesn’t help either. Nor does it help when you have a huge trade deficit that pushes longer term rates down (by the countries we buy from reinvesting). Or the general ability of everyone now (thanks to ETF’s etc) to speculate in and add leverage to various commodity plays. And that hard work idea hasn’t panned out either, with real median wages being up by only a TOTAL of 3.1% since 1989 (that is a whopping .156%/year).

        • Stan

          The fact that food and fuel are going up hits everyone. In fact, it has more impact on lower income brackets. Maybe Bernanke is that disconnected from reality, but I doubt that the rest of the pols in DC are.

  • steve010

    nt

    • Adjoran

      specified and passed by House and Senate and signed by Jimmy Carter.