Colonel Jessup to DU: You Can't Handle the Truth

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Jeffersons Ghost  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-09-10 03:15 PM
Original message
Bernanke Says the Federal Debt Is ‘Unsustainable’
 

Bernanke Says the Federal Debt Is ‘Unsustainable’

By SEWELL CHAN
Published: June 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday that “the federal budget appears to be on an unsustainable path,” but also recognized that the “exceptional increase” in the deficit had been necessary to ease the recession.

Mr. Bernanke’s comments before a hearing of the House Budget Committee, reiterated his view that the economic recovery would likely be slow and painful for many Americans. The Fed projects gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, to rise about 3.5 percent this year — a pace barely above that needed to keep pace with the growth in the labor force.

Mr. Bernanke noted some improvements in consumer spending — particularly on durable goods — and in business investments in software and equipment, but also cautioned that “underlying housing activity appears to have firmed only a little since mid-2009, with activity being weighed down, in part, by a large inventory of distressed or vacant existing houses and by the difficulties of many builders in obtaining credit.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/business/economy/10fe...

 

villager  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:17 PM
Response to Original message
1. Did he add that "but of course, war machine spending must remain untouched?"
 n/t

15 to 20 percent of the budget. Probably less with Obama's social and poliical payouts stimulus spending.

Jeffersons Ghost  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-09-10 03:18 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. doesn't that go without saying? n/t

notesdev  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-09-10 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Of course not
 one of the primary reasons the Fed exists is to keep the war machine funded. That's what a "managed inflation" policy does - inflation is historically intimately connected to war funding.
Give a banker an inch and he will stab you in the throat and screw your dog.

villager  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. interesting, notesdev -- care to elaborate? 
 while I don't doubt the ties between Fed & war machine, how do they use managed inflation to keep the cannons roaring and the people quaking?

 

Mushrooms. It involves lots and lots of mushrooms.

Donnachaidh  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:20 PM
Response to Original message
4. oh he's the herald of cutting programs for the poor and middle class now?
 Of course, the elites HAVE *their* bailouts, and their tax cuts and the keys to the Fed, but when it comes time to do something for the working class we get the *We can't AFFORD it* mantra.

F*ck him and everyone else that has put the screws to this country. Pitchforks, flaming torches, buckets of tar and rails in the ready! Bernanke needs a *makeover*. Complete with feathers... 

Damn, violent tea baggers!

inna  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-09-10 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. How do we even put up with this shit?
 Seriously, I just don't understand how they are allowed to get away with all this crap.

It's like we are a nation of sheep, or sleepwalkers.

bullwinkle428  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
5. OK, so his subtle push to put all of the Repukes back in power
 officially begins today!

BUT THE FED IS NOT POLITICAL!!1!

driver8  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:24 PM
Response to Original message
6. File this under "no shit, Sherlock." 
 It's a good thing we've got an expert like Bernanke handling the Federal Reserve because no one else could have ever figured this out.

Hush, you! 

lpbk2713  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-09-10 03:33 PM
Response to Original message
9. Put the Defense Dept on leave for about a month. 
 


They might be surprised. 

 

But I thought Obama was a terrorist stopping gawd?!?!? Look at all the failed devices he interdicted!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8520935


Now mind you: whenever the subject of national debt arises it is exclusively Bush's and Reagan's fault.

Suddenly we find that deficits don't even exist even though spending has tripled leaving quadrupuled deficit margins.

[AllosaursRus]

Our banana republic, dictator in charge, is printing money faster than his partners in crime can count it, and these fools blame our military?

Stooooopid is very strong today at the DUmp! As a matter of fact, I think it is infectious and being transported by their "healing white light".