Repudiating South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis
For his remarks re: Chairman Ben Bernanke
I believe South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis was very wrong for launching such a mean-spirited attack on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. There's nothing wrong with explaining why a position of Bernanke's is injurious to the economy, but to come out and call him a traitor and dictator is wrong. It's nothing I feel comfortable with.
I can remember doing my best many years ago to counsel people to focus more on issues rather than personalities. And that's why I never really got into writing about how the Rockefellers and Rothschilds run everything. Who runs what is inconsequential. What matters is why a policy is wrong.
Over the years, I've became convinced that it's more of a conspiracy of ignorance than anything. People are taught things like the Phillips curve. They really believe that stuff. I don't, because I was taught well by Austrian Schoolers. While I believe Ben Bernanke is wrong in a lot of his assumptions, my take on him is that he's probably a nice enough person and very sincere in his beliefs. Furthermore, he isn't some dictator working behind the scenes to run everything. I don't believe that for a single minute. He holds a political appointment, and he's there to accommodate the Congress. The Congress, of course, is there to accommoate voters. If it wasn't Ben Bernanke in that position, then it would be somebody else.
I can also see the desire to not disclose everything the Fed does. The overall program might be wrong, but suppose the Fed advertised what banks needed bailouts. That would certainly stigmatize those banks, and it could engender bank runs.
The real fault rests with the voters who elect candidates to keep the spending orgy intact. Every time I hear people I know talk about how they expect everything they paid into Social Security back, I'm reminded that it's not Ben Bernanke's fault. Without quantitative easing, there's no Social Security check.
Mark served honorably for four years on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry, and was a Libertarian endorsed candidate for a municipal office in 2002. He re-enlisted in the ARNG in 2006 because he was depressed/at times SI without the military. He has held the NFA Series 3 license (futures and futures options broker) which he did a voluntary withdrawal on because he couldn't in good conscience sell managed futures since firms would do better to hire an in-house trader to trade a proprietary account with a discount broker, which he outlined in his well-written withdrawal request. Since the year 2000, he has spent much of his free time reading the great minds of the Austrian School of economics, such as Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, et al.
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