Category: News and Opinion

Within days after Tea Party Republicans nearly drove the federal government into default to gain political advantage, they have been topped by presidential candidate Rick Perry. “Texas Governor Rick Perry, the latest entrant in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination for 2012, said it would be ‘almost treacherous — or treasonous’ for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to increase stimulus spending before the 2012 election.” Because by helping to prevent recession, doing so might be part of a plot to help Barack Obama win re-election.

Now for reasons of lack of expertise, etc., I generally don’t write about Federal Reserve monetary policy. But since Perry has broken what has been considered a taboo by responsible politicians and politicized that policy, let’s take a look at how the federal funds rate has been changed since 1987 – under Republican Fed chairmen – in the run-up to Presidential elections.

This article in the Financial Times is well worth a read. It is behind a pay wall, so let me hit the highlights (you can register and read the whole thing for free if you want to). Someone told the author that the people of the United Kingdom were mature enough to distinguish between problems caused by long term global trends and the decisions of their leaders. “I question whether such rationality is the norm among the British, American and European peoples. Our societies cherish a gross sense of entitlement…if today’s leaders told their peoples the truth, and articulated the most plausible and bleak scenarios for their economic future, I will bet my socks most would be electorally trounced by rivals claiming to offer panaceas.”

The reality, this author asserts and I agree, is that the “fundamental task is to reconcile electorates to accepting less of everything than they have had in the past.” “We get the political leaders we deserve. Recent evidence suggests that in America, especially, charlatans prosper on the hustings, while good people flinch from exposing themselves to the humiliations and deceits essential to secure public office. Unless or until electorates become more rational, I doubt we shall see leaders much better – though, please God and the Tea Party, no worse – than today.”

While I tend to agree with the assessment that Tom DiNapoli has "Chipmunk Balls" (in fact, this might be conceding him too much)–it could be argued with some justice that refusing to stand with this particular Governor requires almost elephantine testicular fortitude.

Dear Mr.” Gatemouth”:

I have chosen to go this public route (open letter) because some folks I do respect strongly requested that you and I end our long public blog-feud. Thus I invite you to meet me to initiate a discussion as to how we could totally resolve this. I am willing to invite five other Room Eight colleagues (Ben Smith, Gur Tsbar, Judge Boyajian, Larry Littlefield and Vincent Nunes) to such an event (meeting): as both observers and participants. I will bring a couple people as my witness (between Darryl Smart, Pam Miller, Ernie Skinner or Wellington Sharpe). You probably know them all since they are longtime political activists in the Brooklyn political theater. 

I was planning to write something explaining why the Iowa Republican Straw Poll was like National Football League Preseason games.

I was going to say that neither has even a mediocre record of predicting success by pointing to the fact that only one winner of the Straw Poll has ever been elected President and that the San Francisco Forty Niners were the NFL Preseason champs last year at 4-0 and finished the regular season 6-10.

So now Governor Rick Perry of Texas wants to run for president of the United States of America.  It seems like only yesterday that this modern day Sam Houston wanted Texas to leave the United States and become its own nation and he even had done some research on this and found that it could be done legally.