RUSH: Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, says he doesn’t know why the economy is limping along. From an equally stumped Associated Press, headline: “Economic Trouble Puzzles Fed Chief, Too.” What economic trouble? I thought we were in a recovery. AP keeps telling us that. By the way, I thought Obama kept telling us we’re in a recovery. What is this sabotaging the economy business? See, we heard that, too. We hear Obama say we’re in a recovery. We read the media report that Obama says that we are in a recovery. What is this economic sabotage, then, that’s going on?
“The economy’s continuing struggles aren’t just confounding ordinary Americans. They’ve also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.” Oh, no. We were supposed to be on our way to creating 500,000 new jobs every month by now, according to Vice President Bite Me. So, in other words, Bernanke is saying that it is the economy holding the economy back. It’s what he said here. “We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,” but it’s gonna be “more persistent than we thought.” So the economy is screwing up the economy. That’s, I guess, the answer.
“It was the Fed chief’s most explicit warning yet that the economy will face serious challenges next year. For several months, he had said the factors working against economic growth appeared to be ‘transitory.'” Well, if you take a long enough view, everything’s transitory. Temporary, transitory. Now, here’s the guy that’s got all the answers. Here’s the guy that spent $2 trillion. We still don’t know who got it all. Two trillion dollars to rebirth the US economy. He has no clue why it hasn’t worked. Doesn’t have the slightest idea, folks, when it will start working. That was AP.
Forbes is equally befuddled: “In his second post-FOMC press conference, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke touched on every topic, admitting that the recovery was weaker than expected and that beyond temporary factors like supply chain disruptions in Japan and high energy prices.” So it’s not the Japanese earthquake. Obama’s not gonna like that. The regime’s been focused on that as a excuse. So it’s not Japanese earthquake. It’s not gasoline prices. Something else is going on to sabotage the economy, and Ben Bernanke says he doesn’t know what it is. He says we’re in a soft patch; he doesn’t know what’s causing it. No weather to blame. No natural disasters. No way to look in a mirror to see the problem. How about Obamacare, Mr. Bernanke, think it might have anything to do with that? What this is, Bernanke is saying he’s a failure, too.
Obama’s a failure; Bernanke is a failure; Schumer and Durbin admit they are failures. They are admitting there’s economic sabotage going on. I don’t care how you slice this, there’s no way the Democrats win it. The Democrats are in power. Look at it this way. Look at me, they got the White House, they got the House, or they had it until this past January, they had the Senate, and the last two years the Republicans, without a majority anywhere, have sabotaged the great Obama? The Republicans, these idiots, right when everybody’s looking at them have sabotaged the economy? Why, how smart can Bernanke and Durbin and Schumer be if they let the Republicans sabotage the economy, how could that happen? Republicans did this under the cover of darkness. Republicans did this sabotage when nobody was looking? The Republicans put one over on the great Obama, destroying his economic plans, causing unemployment?
This is pathetic. This means that they know they own it. Mr. Bernanke, let me tell you what the factors are that you just can’t seem to figure out here to explain this. Leftists, liberals, socialism, spending, spending, spending, and your printing. Does that maybe help? But on the other side of this, ladies and gentlemen, by virtue of the chairman of the Fed now — look at me — by virtue of the chairman of the Fed saying he has no idea what has happened, by the chairman, the all powerful chairman of the Federal Reserve saying he’s clueless, befuddled, he has no idea how this can happen. Does that not open the door for the Democrats to blame sabotage, Republican sabotage? I see how all this is shaping up now.
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RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen — Mr. Bernanke, specifically — we all here have a suggestion as to what’s causing all the trouble. Now, we aren’t economists, but we do know a little history, and what we know is that throughout human history Obamanomics has failed every time it’s tried. Keynesian spending never works. Socialism never creates prosperity, nor does communism. It doesn’t work. There’s your problem! It’s Obama. It’s not complicated.
Ray in Chicago, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. It’s an honor and a pleasure to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: You know, I’ve got a couple of statements and a question. If this were a private business, and a man you had hired to do the job that Ben Bernanke has been hired to do came into the board meeting and stated, “Well, I’ve done all I can and I don’t know what to do,” would there be anything to do other than to ask for his resignation?
RUSH: No, I think he’d be gone.
CALLER: Why isn’t everybody, including the Democrats, asking for the man’s resignation?
RUSH: No. That would admit culpability on their part. They’re not gonna do that.
CALLER: Well, he’s already admitted it.
RUSH: But getting rid of him is like a nail in the coffin. That’s like the Democrats admitting they, the Democrats, are the problem here — and now they’re trying to blame the Republicans for the sabotage. So Bernanke is just an innocent bystander, a victim. They’re not gonna get rid of him. They don’t get rid of their own. They do not get rid of their own. It takes a Weiner-type scandal before they get rid of their own, and they don’t even really like getting rid of guys like Weiner.
CALLER: (laughing) Well, you’re probably right about that.
RUSH: They don’t. No way. These people do not throw themselves overboard. They do not throw themselves under the bus. They don’t do it. They don’t care. They don’t take action that will harping their ideology. They’re not gonna shoot themselves on purpose. They do get circular firing squads going, but they’re not like us. We will shoot ourselves on purpose to show that we’re good people. They won’t. If this were a Republican president and Bernanke’s out there saying this stuff, the Republican president, of course, would be asking for his resignation.
He can’t, really. The guy served independently for all practical purposes, but there would still be a clamor for him to go. I still think, folks… Let me just be blunt once again. I don’t care what they’re trying to sell today that the Democrats are trying to blame the Republicans for this sabotage. I still think that Bernanke is doing what he was hired to do. I think what the Democrats are doing is trying to escape blame for this. They know how mad you are. They know how fit to be tied you are over what’s happened to your 401(k), to your kids’ future, your own future, your job, your house.
They know. They know how mad you are. They knew that was gonna happen. They’re not idiots. They know if they set out on a course to fundamentally transform the country, change the economy, and get rid of the routes to capitalism since our founding, they know it’s gonna upset people. So what they’re trying to do now is fix the blame elsewhere. They’re just trying to escape the blame. That’s this latest policy — the latest trick, if you will. But Bernanke is simply doing what he was hired to do, as is Obama, as are they all.
“How can you say this, Mr. Limbaugh? You keep saying this and this is just outrageous! We in the New Castrati, we want to believe you, Mr. Limbaugh, but how can you say this?”
Okay, let me ask you this, Mr. New Castrati. If (take your pick: Bernanke, Obama, Schumer, Durbin) don’t want the economy to tank — if they really don’t want it to tank — they would be doing far different things than be what they’re doing. If they don’t want the economy to tank, they wouldn’t be adopting positions assuring the piling up of more debt. If they didn’t want more uncertainty — if they didn’t want what’s happening here — they would embark on policies designed to create jobs, increase revenue to the Treasury; have some confidence and certainty in the economy for businesses large and small. They’re not doing any of that. If they really wanted what they claim to want, they’d stop all this. They have two-and-a-half years of failure as a track record. It’s obvious what to do, and they’re not doing it.
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RUSH: Just so you know I’m not making it up, this is Bernanke yesterday afternoon in Washington, his press conference where he says he doesn’t have the slightest idea why the economy is doing so poorly.
BERNANKE: We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting. One way to think about it is that maybe some of the headwinds that have been concerning us like —
RUSH: What?
BERNANKE: — you know, weakness in the financial sector, problems in the housing sector, balance sheet and deleveraging issues. Some of these headwinds may be stronger and more persistent than we thought and I think it’s an appropriate balance to attribute a slow down partly to these identifiable temporary factors, but to acknowledge a possibility that some of the slowdown is due to factors which are longer lived and which will be still operative by next year.
RUSH: The headwinds, that’s what it was, that’s the answer. Headwinds. He’s up at 35,000 feet, he’s flying around, there are headwinds up there. What did he mean by headwinds? He said, well, weakness in the financial sector. That sounds like the economy. Problems in the housing sector. That sounds like economy. Balance sheet and deleveraging issues. Quick question. Do you what he means by deleveraging issues, off the top of your head? If somebody were to ask you in a couple of seconds, could you answer the question? I was just asking a certified CPA accountant moneybags kinda guy whether or not deleveraging issues could be explained in two seconds, and the answer is no. I was only kidding about wanting an answer in two seconds.
It sounds to me like he’s just saying the economy is in the way of the economy and we don’t know why the economy is doing what it’s doing. And it might extend into next year that we won’t know why it’s doing what it’s doing. I remember Clinton in the late nineties saying that they had defeated the business cycle. I will never forget them saying that.
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