Weekend at Bernanke's

Clearly Fed Chief Ben Bernanke has checked out and has started dreaming about retirement with yesterday’s Weekend at Bernie’s performance. Was Janet Yellen propping him up? And since when did the Chairman of the Federal Reserve become the President of the United States? His comments sounded like talking points sent directly from the White House. The Wall Street Journal reports here:

“A government shutdown, and perhaps even more so a failure to raise the debt limit, could have very serious consequences for the financial markets and for the economy,”. Bernanke said in his press conference following the policy meeting. “The Federal Reserve’s policy is to do whatever we can to keep the economy on course.”

Bernanke is chasing his tail with the employment scene, or lack-there-of. If he was doing his job correctly he’d focus on inflation and be done with it. At least we’ll be done with him soon enough, but if it’s Yellen as the next chair it won’t be long before it’s time to break out the “miss me yet?” t-shirts.

The Journal continues:

The Fed says it wants a lower unemployment rate, but Mr. Bernanke gave conflicting answers about how meaningful officials find the latest declines. At one point he said the unemployment rate was “perhaps the best single indicator of the state of the labor market.” But he later said “the unemployment rate is not necessarily a great measure in all circumstances of the state of the labor market overall.”

Mr. Bernanke also appeared to back away from a bond-buying marker the Fed had laid down in June. Then, Mr. Bernanke said at a press conference that officials expected the jobless rate to be around 7% when the Fed ended its $85 billion monthly bond buying program. He made no mention of that 7% marker in his statement Wednesday and played it down when asked about it. “There is not any magic number that we are shooting for,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We’re looking for overall improvement in the labor market.”

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.