Yesterday, I defended Gentle Ben Bernanke. I said I believed him when he said he didn’t say something and said it would have been appropriate if he had. Or, something like that. A committee of Congress had his partner in non-crime on the hot seat today accusing him of saying something he had already acknowledge [...]
(Or a big part of it anyway) I sat next to Ben Bernanke for almost three years at the FOMC table when he served as a Fed Governor. This was before he became Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors and later returned as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal [...]
Last Friday I was on The Kudlow Report to discuss the proposal that the Fed be audited in connection with the question of any inappropriate influence applied by Chairman Bernanke on Mr. Lewis of the Bank of America in connection with the Merrill acquisition. I may follow up in a separate post on some of the [...]
Just to catch you up on what's been going on, I recently had two good discussions on CNBC about the Fed and the markets. On June 23rd I commented on why implementing a Fed exit strategy may be premature, and on the 24th I responded to questions about Chairman Bernanke's likely role in the BOA/Merrill Lynch affair.
"Accounting Arcana" "It's fascinating that the not-so-tiny matter of a $30 billion loss comes down to accounting arcana, but it does." I copied that quote down last night when half asleep and this morning I can't recall where I got it. Now I can't find it. My best guess is the WSJ.com. My apologies [...]
Lately, I've gotten a lot of time on CNBC's Kudlow Report. Here's my latest from April 28 on whether bank stress tests will reveal Bank of America needs more capital.