Welcome to Capital Account. Federal Reserve Chairman - and central planner in chief - Ben Bernanke trotted to the hill today to give another one of his "economic outlook" speeches, as traders listened carefully for any news that might give them an edge on their dailyspeculations...hoping to make a quick buck.
A quick buck, it seems, is all that Americans can hope to make these days, with interest rates suppressed at near zero for almost 4 years, forcing more andmore hard-working people to speculate on riskier assets if they would like any sort of return on their money at all. For those less inclined to spin the roulette wheel, there is always the comfort of one's mattress, which guarantees a return of some of your money - whatever is not confiscated through what Mr. Bernanke so euphemistically calls Quantitative Easing: We call it counterfeiting. More confrontational souls may refer to it as outright theft...
Bernanke and other Fed governors like Janet Yellen, who in a recent speech to the Boston Economic Club, advocated for more "accommodative monetary policy" - more euphemisms - as part of the central bank's efforts to revive the economy, believe that the economic future of the country rests on their Atlian shoulders. But does it really, and what if you don't trust policymaking academics, with track records as bad as the Fed's, to run the economy anyway? What if you want to work, save, invest, and live without scanning frantically through policy statements, press releases, and federal reserve minutes everytime you go to open your wallet?
Well, our next guest has some solutions of his own. He's Mike Maloney, founder of GoldSilver.com.
