It seems the Fed isn't any better with tracking their money than any other government office in the past eight years. All that money for the TARP that the Fed gave to banks, well, we're not sure just how those banks are using that money. You know, after they promised to use the funds to help secure "illiquid assets" and help homeowners. Then Benny Boy Bernanke decided the money would be better spent giving it directly to banks with no oversight or direction.
You might also remember the pallets of shrink wrapped bills we shipped to Iraq. You know, the money we couldn't even have a sign out sheet for and went "unaccountable."
Hey, Republicans, aren't you supposed to be the party of "fiscal discipline" (okay, well I guess since you took a budget surplus and quickly turned it to the largest deficit I should be surprised, I'll wait while you all shout "9-11" - you know, that excuse is getting old) and the "anti-government waste" people?
But then it hits me. Why did they give the money directly to the banks? In some cases they supposedly "forced" it on them. I mean, this money was supposed to help turn around the economy by helping the credit flow. The Fed outsourced the recovery.
That's right. Along with all the other functions of government, the conservatives felt that "the market would know better on how to fix the market." So, instead of having their own plan, you know, like buying up the "troubled assets" that were dragging the credit market to a halt, they figured "the market" would have a better plan.
You know, except they never do.
And on that thought, there's also a lot of asking economists why they didn't warn us what was coming. Many of them dodge and then say that they all bought into "the self-regulating market" myth. And then obviously that didn't work. I beg to differ. Strongly. This is how a "self-regulating market" works.
Many business people like to make analogies to biology, because you know, business is so like biology. Or at least their misunderstanding of the biology survey courses they needed to take for their BBA (bachelor of business arts, MBAs don't need that extraneous coursework crap). See, they never learned how Mother Nature self-regulates. Many people say that MN likes to keep things in balance. And for the most part, that is true. What they don 't tell you is how MN keeps things in balance. See, biological systems swing toward unbalance because of latency and lag issues. Then something bad happens. Populations crash. Hard. Like a wildebeast population expands because their are fewer lions and lots of fresh grazing. Those furry ruminants then destroy the local ecosystem by over-browsing. And the population of lions grows because, hey there's all these wildebeasts just waiting to be lunch. Then the wildebeast population gets over hunted, because they can only push out so many more. The ecosystem also starts starving them. Think it's done. Oh no. See the zebras then have a hard time because there isn't enough browsing. And then, because the grasses don't come back right away, the zebras crash as well. And then there's all these lions and no wildebeasts and zebras to munch on. Their population crashes. Which then leads to a perfect opportunity for the wildebeast population to regrow and overgraze, because there aren't so many zebras and lions and plenty of fresh grazing.
Sounds like a boom-bust cycle? Yeah, it does. A self-regulating system. Go figure. Point for an externally regulated system. You know, unless you want to be some lion's lunch or a starving lion. Or the grass. Poor grass.
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