Ben Bernanke finally stops fiddling and orders a new round of quantitative easing

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

For a guy who professes to be an expert on the Great Depression, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke really manages to piss me off with his cowardly reluctance to use his monetary powers to stimulate the economy, just because Tea-Publicans in Congress have told him that it will look like he is playing politics to help President Obama's reelection effort by stimulating the economy.

These Tea-Publican insurrectionists have been holding America hostage and actively sabotaging the American economy for ideological reasons and partisan political gain. it us unpatriotic and un-American. Bernanke's reluctance to act, as he is required to do under federal law, has only aided and abetted these Tea-Publican insurrectionists. What is in the best interests of America should always take precedence over what is in the political interests of the GOP.

Today, Ben Bernanke finally stopped fiddling while the economy suffers under the weight of GOP austerity measures and congressional inaction, and ordered a new round of quantitative easing to stimulate the economy. Fed launches bond-buying plan to boost economy:

The Federal Reserve on Thursday opened a major new offensive in the
battle to reduce unemployment, launching its most extensive effort to
stimulate the economy in the past two years.

The Fed announced a round of bond purchases targeting the
mortgage market, a policy commonly known as “quantitative easing.” The
central bank said it would purchase $85 billion in bonds a month through
the rest of the year, and then $40 billion a month indefinitely until
the economy does not need the support.

In addition, the Fed said that it is extending its plan to keep
interest rates ultra-low into mid-2015, roughly a half-year longer than
previously planned.

And in a surprising move, the Fed used stark
language in its policymaking statement to make clear it would continue
to support the economy “for a considerable time after the economic
recovery strengthens.”

Without additional stimulus, the Fed
statement said, “economic growth might not be strong enough to generate
sustained improvement in labor market conditions.”

* * *

The combined measures are likely to bring down interest rates, which are
already at record lows, to support lending, borrowing and spending. It
is Fed’s most dramatic step since 2010 and arguably the biggest package
of actions since the its unprecedented intervention during the 2008
financial crisis.

* * *

Now the central bank is poised to take steps to avoid the type of “lost
decade” that Japan suffered after its financial crisis and that Europe seems increasingly likely to face.

* * *

The Fed’s actions Thursday are likely to inject it further into the
political debate. Republicans and conservative economists have been
hostile to the idea of new stimulus, saying it could unleash the
bogeyman of inflation [nonexistent] and spur excessive borrowing by the federal
government by keeping Treasury rates artificially low. [Now is the ideal time to borrow for infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy.]

But the
Fed is carrying the burden of acting to help growth, in part because
lawmakers have been unable to forge a consensus — either on how to
stimulate the economy in the short term or forge a long-term deficit
reduction deal that would head off the fiscal cliff, the series of tax
increases and spending cuts likely to send the economy into recession
next year. [The "less-than-do-nothing" Tea-Publican Congress, the worst Congress in American history.]

It's about damn time that Bernanke acts! It's not much, but it's better than doing noting, which is all we ever get from our failed Tea-Publican Congress. Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?

UPDATE: Ezra Klein writes Ben Bernanke: The economy’s tough, older friend:

The Federal Reserve’s announcement Thursday is a big deal.

It’s a big deal because of what they’re doing. They’re buying $85
billion in assets every month through the end of the year, and then
they’re potentially going to keep doing it in 2013. They’re promising to
keep interest rates low through the recovery, and then keep them low
after the recovery strengthens.

But it’s a bigger deal because of what they’re saying. Thursday, the
Federal Reserve said, finally, that they’re not content with 8 percent
unemployment and a sluggish recovery, and they’re willing to actually do
something about it. If you’re an investor or a business owner trying to
decide what the market is going to look like next year, you just got a
lot more optimistic.