$100

Read about it here. It's obviously no surprise to regular readers of this space. The weather in the North Sea must have been terrible for the past half-decade, eh?

In a perfect world, or at least one in which accountability mattered, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and certainly Alan Greenspan would be yanked in front of Congress immediately, put under some hot lights for a few days, and asked the following:

• Is it now official Fed policy that $100 oil indicates "a strong economy" instead of inflation? If so, at what point would that change? $150? $200?
  
  
• After how many more years will elevated food and energy prices no longer be spun as "temporary spikes"?
  
  
• Has the Fed had an internal debate about how its monetary policy contributes to geopolitical tensions via the rising oil prices caused by a falling dollar?
  
  
• Has the Fed ever warned the White House on the cost of Iraq?
  
  
• From a policy standpoint, where is the line between encouraging risk and fomenting moral hazard? When, if ever, is a government backstop appropriate?
  
  
• Do you have direct or indirect knowledge of any government entity or a proxy ever intervening to support the stock market (or any individual stock) via futures or in any other way?
  
  
• Does the Federal Reserve have an opinion on the morality of debasing the income of wage earners and the cash savings of retirees in order to support speculators, stock-selling corporate executives, and 30-something hedge fund traders making millions a year?

Get them on the record. Ron Paul has already asked some of these questions, which is why the political and financial establishments hate him (you didn't think it was really about Iraq, did you?):





When Bernanke replaced Greenspan, I predicted that the length of his tenure would be a return to the norm after Greenspan's exceptionally long reign. I'm sticking to that prediction. Yes, imbalances left from the Greenspan years have made his job harder. But Bernanke isn't some unlucky rube out of South Carolina who came to Washington and stepped in someone else's mess. He's had a role in shaping monetary policy for the past few decades. He's tacitly or expressly supported the Bush administration every step of the way, and for that was rewarded with his current job. His statements about the role of monetary policy in stemming economic weakness have been the lifeblood of reckless speculators and dollar short-sellers and the bane of prudent savers. I think years from now Bernanke will be seen as a temporary cut-out, an Arthur Burns mini-me, a front man for expediency, someone to damn the monetary torpedoes and then get the hell out before some Very Serious People (who no doubt quietly shifted their own savings into euros and gold long ago) announce that no, that didn't go well, but we've found a Volcker-type to come in and clean things up. Let's hope I'm wrong.