"Hooray for Chair Bernanke
The economic explorer
'Did someone call him 'schnorrer''?
...
This fact I emphasize with stress,
I never print a dollar unless - Somebody's buying.
---Groucho Marx (Ben Bernanke), Animal Crackers
Groucho Marx was, of course singing about himself, Captain Spaulding, in Animal Crackers, but with a small modification or two the lines sing of Ben Bernanke. In case your Yiddish is rusty, "schnorrer" means beggar or sponger, according to Wikipedia. Is it fair that John Q. Public is subsidizing multi-million dollar Wall Street salaries for guys who can't figure out how to run a business?
Please review the entire song:
(All on Wall Street)
At last we are to meet him,
The famous Ben Bernanke.
From climates hot and cranky,
The Chairman has arrived.
Most heartily we'll greet him,
With plain and fancy cheering.
Until he's hard of hearing.
The Chairman has arrived.
At last - The Chairman has arrived.
(Butler)
Mr. Horatio W. Jamison, Field Secretary to Chair Bernanke.
(Jamison/Zeppo)
I represent the Chairman who insists on my informing you of these conditions under which he camps here. In one thing he is very strict, he wants his women young and picked and as for Wall Street bankers, he won't have any tramps here.
(All on Wall Street)
As for bankers he won't have any tramps here,
There must be no tramps.
(Jamison/Zeppo)
The bankers must all be very old,
The women warm, the champagne cold.
It's under these conditions that he camps here.
(Voice off Screen)
I'm announcing Chairman Ben Bernanke
(All on Wall Street)
He's announcing Ben Bernanke
Oh dear, he is coming,
At last he's here.
(Chair Bernanke)
Hello, I must be going,
I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be printing.
I'm glad I came, but just the same I must be going.
La La.
(Mrs. Rittenhouse/Margaret Dumont)
For my sake you must stay.
If you should go away,
You'd spoil this party I am throwing.
(Chair Bernanke)
I'll stay a week or two,
I'll stay the summer through,
But I am telling you,
I must be printing.
(All on Wall Street)
Before you print,
Will you oblige us,
And tell us of your deeds so glowing?
(Bernanke)
I'll print as much as you say,
In fact I'll even stay!
I'll print dollars far and away!
(All on Wall Street)
Good!
(Bernanke)
But I must be going.
I must be printing.
(Jamison/Zeppo)
There's something that I'd like to say,
That he's too modest to relay.
The Chairman is a moral man.
Sometimes he finds it trying
To be printing and printing.
(Bernanke)
This fact I emphasize with stress,
I never print a buck unless - Somebody's buying.
I never print a buck unless - Somebody's paying.
(All on Wall Street)
The Chairman is a very moral man.
(Jamison/Zeppo)
If he hears of a high interest rate, He'll naturally repel it.
(Bernanke)
I hate a high interest rate I do.
(All on Wall Street)
The Chairman is a very moral man.
Hooray for Chair Bernanke, The economic explorer.
(Chair Bernanke)
Did someone call me Shnorrer?
(All on Wall Street)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
(Jamison/Zeppo)
He went onto Wall Street where all the bankers pocket bucks.
(Chair Bernanke)
If I stay here I'll go nuts.
(All on Wall Street)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for economic science.
(Chair Bernanke)
Hey, hey.
(Mrs. Rittenhouse/Margaret Dumont)
You are the only Chairman to print money over every acre.
(Chair Bernanke)
I think I'll try and make her.
(All on Wall Street)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for economic science.
(Chair Bernanke)
Hey, hey.
(All on Wall Street)
Hooray for Chair Bernanke, The economic explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
(Chair Bernanke attempts to speak)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........
(All on Wall Street)
Hooray for Bernanke, The economic explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
(Chair Bernanke)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........
Hooray for Ben Bernanke, Wall Street's hero.....
Well, somebody's got to do it!
Hooray, hooray, hooray.
Showing posts with label schnorrer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schnorrer. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Thirty-six Years Late and Ten Trillion Dollars Short
Goldbug Howard S. Katz blogs that media coverage of the Fed is rife with fraud. There is no difference, notes Katz, between the Fed's reducing interest rates and increasing the money supply, although the Fed wants to claim otherwise:
"You will usually hear that the Federal Reserve is adjusting the Federal funds (not the T-bill) rate. This is another piece of misinformation designed to keep the public’s eye off the ball. The Federal Reserve does not operate in the Federal funds market...."
Katz notes that in order to purchase T-bills, the Fed must increase the money supply, and it does so through printing more monopoly money, i.e., dollars:
"When the Federal Reserve first received this power, the total money supply of the U.S. was twenty billion dollars. This week it was 1363 billion dollars."
Between 1946 and August 1971 countries operated under the Bretton Woods system under which most countries settled their international balances in U.S. dollars but some redeemed dollars for gold. Because of pre-1971 inflation, balance-of-payments deficits reduced gold reserves. Thus, President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer offer gold. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one dollar in 1971 has the same buying power as $5.13 in 2007. In other words, since the ending of the final link to the gold standard 36 years ago, the dollar has declined to 1/5.13 or 19.49% of its value.
Mainstream economists have developed elaborate rationales for this decline, such as "assuming that all wages are indexed, all savings accounts are indexed, the stock market goes up at a constant rate, and loan payments are indexed, then inflation does not matter". If you believe them you lose money.
After 36 years of post-Bretton Woods inflation, The New York Sun notes that the current real estate bubble has burst. Prices have fallen by the most since 1970 and purchases have fallen by 8.3%, the most in seven years. Construction is in its worst slump since 1991. It is true that there is a bright side to the decline of the dollar, namely, we have become to Europe what Europe was to us in the 1960s: a tourist destination. As the Sun also reports, "New York City's travel, real estate, and manufacturing sectors — which profit from the sale of services to foreigners — will likely benefit." Of course, those who need to purchase real estate in the New York area will pay through the nose, as their monopoly dollars need to be brought in wheel barrows and cannot compete with Euros, Yen or Yuan. But who cares, since those of us who are selling now can retire?
To its credit, the Sun ran another front page article about the dollar's decline , "The Dollar's Fall Starts to Worry". The Sun notes that "foreign investors proclaim that a "for sale" sign has been hung on the city". The Sun quotes Axel Merk:
"No country in the world has ever fought itself to prosperity by weakening its currency"
The Sun also quotes chief of the Fed's counterfeiting operations, Ben Bernanke, as saying that there is a "liquidity crisis". With my TIAA CREF money market fund yielding 3.68%, what kind of liquidity crisis is Bernanke describing? Is he insane? I'm having trouble figuring out whether Ben Bernanke is on hallucinogenic drugs; is a crook; or hopes for a high-paying job from schnorrers* like Jim Cramer.
The Sun also notes that Russia, China and the Middle East countries are starting to exchange dollars for the euro. Given the multi-trillion (not billion) extent of foreign holdings, there is a massive potential for further reductions in the dollar.
Given that the Sun is reporting the dollar decline thirty-six years after the end of the gold standard, and after the Fed has circulated ten trillion dollars in monopoly money around the world, it looks like the Sun's front-page article may be thirty-six years late and ten trillion dollars short. Buy gold and commodities, friends.
*To revise Groucho Marx's song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding"in Animal Crackers (the tune was also the theme to Groucho's 1960s TV Show, You Bet Your Life):
My name is Jimmy Cramer
The Economy's Explorer
Did someone call me a schnorrer?
Hooray, hooray, hooray
"You will usually hear that the Federal Reserve is adjusting the Federal funds (not the T-bill) rate. This is another piece of misinformation designed to keep the public’s eye off the ball. The Federal Reserve does not operate in the Federal funds market...."
Katz notes that in order to purchase T-bills, the Fed must increase the money supply, and it does so through printing more monopoly money, i.e., dollars:
"When the Federal Reserve first received this power, the total money supply of the U.S. was twenty billion dollars. This week it was 1363 billion dollars."
Between 1946 and August 1971 countries operated under the Bretton Woods system under which most countries settled their international balances in U.S. dollars but some redeemed dollars for gold. Because of pre-1971 inflation, balance-of-payments deficits reduced gold reserves. Thus, President Nixon announced that the United States would no longer offer gold. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one dollar in 1971 has the same buying power as $5.13 in 2007. In other words, since the ending of the final link to the gold standard 36 years ago, the dollar has declined to 1/5.13 or 19.49% of its value.
Mainstream economists have developed elaborate rationales for this decline, such as "assuming that all wages are indexed, all savings accounts are indexed, the stock market goes up at a constant rate, and loan payments are indexed, then inflation does not matter". If you believe them you lose money.
After 36 years of post-Bretton Woods inflation, The New York Sun notes that the current real estate bubble has burst. Prices have fallen by the most since 1970 and purchases have fallen by 8.3%, the most in seven years. Construction is in its worst slump since 1991. It is true that there is a bright side to the decline of the dollar, namely, we have become to Europe what Europe was to us in the 1960s: a tourist destination. As the Sun also reports, "New York City's travel, real estate, and manufacturing sectors — which profit from the sale of services to foreigners — will likely benefit." Of course, those who need to purchase real estate in the New York area will pay through the nose, as their monopoly dollars need to be brought in wheel barrows and cannot compete with Euros, Yen or Yuan. But who cares, since those of us who are selling now can retire?
To its credit, the Sun ran another front page article about the dollar's decline , "The Dollar's Fall Starts to Worry". The Sun notes that "foreign investors proclaim that a "for sale" sign has been hung on the city". The Sun quotes Axel Merk:
"No country in the world has ever fought itself to prosperity by weakening its currency"
The Sun also quotes chief of the Fed's counterfeiting operations, Ben Bernanke, as saying that there is a "liquidity crisis". With my TIAA CREF money market fund yielding 3.68%, what kind of liquidity crisis is Bernanke describing? Is he insane? I'm having trouble figuring out whether Ben Bernanke is on hallucinogenic drugs; is a crook; or hopes for a high-paying job from schnorrers* like Jim Cramer.
The Sun also notes that Russia, China and the Middle East countries are starting to exchange dollars for the euro. Given the multi-trillion (not billion) extent of foreign holdings, there is a massive potential for further reductions in the dollar.
Given that the Sun is reporting the dollar decline thirty-six years after the end of the gold standard, and after the Fed has circulated ten trillion dollars in monopoly money around the world, it looks like the Sun's front-page article may be thirty-six years late and ten trillion dollars short. Buy gold and commodities, friends.
*To revise Groucho Marx's song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding"in Animal Crackers (the tune was also the theme to Groucho's 1960s TV Show, You Bet Your Life):
My name is Jimmy Cramer
The Economy's Explorer
Did someone call me a schnorrer?
Hooray, hooray, hooray
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