Should Bernanke Apologize for Saving the Market?

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The United States Government is capitalizing on a comprehensional failure of the human mind – the inability to fully grasp the magnitude of large numbers. Upon hearing numbers beyond a few thousand our brains interpret it as, “Wow, that’s a big number!” with no tangible image to relay exactly how big. So, let’s start with a One Dollar Bill. We can understand $1.00, right?
According to the United States treasury, a One Dollar Bill has a thickness of 0.0043 inches. One thousand One Dollar Bills would be one thousand times thicker -- 4.3 inches.
One million is one thousand thousands, so the thickness of $1,000,000 is 4300 inches. Converting to feet and this becomes 358.3 feet, an American football field.
One billion -- $1,000,000,000 is one thousand times thicker still or 358,333.3 feet. This is 67.866 miles, the driving distance from New York City to Milford CT.
One Trillion is one thousand billions – one trillion One Dollar Bills stacked one on top of another is 67,866 miles. This would circumnavigate the globe 2.73 times.
The proposed 700 Billion Dollar bailout alone would be a stack of One Dollar Bills stretching 47,506.2 miles, or 1.90 times around the globe.
A stack of One Dollar Bills totaling the current national debt cap of 10.6 trillion dollars would go around the equator 28.93 times. The proposed cap of 11.3 trillion dollars would go around 30.85 times.
Is creating a debt that is the equivalent of a stack of One Dollar Bills rounding planet 31 times a responsible act?

JP in USA of GA 11:18PM September 21, 2008

...with this, & all the rest happening worldwide, "Atlas" is indeed "shrugging"...

Pelagic of AZ 6:52PM April 18, 2008

These Wall Street suits and Bush go on about the free-market and sneer at welfare social programs for the genuinely needy, yet seem to think they should be given welfare by the taxpayer?
The biggest benefit scroungers are not in the inner cities but in the boardrooms of Wall Street. Wall Street are a bunch of socialists who want the nanny state to pay all their bills (but Wall Street keeps all the profits, eh?)
Why are we giving welfare to the stinking rich?
Why are we rewarding incompetence?
At least Grassley and Ron Paul are proper conservatives, unlike Bush and co who are disgusting hypocrites who have their snouts in the trough..

Gary Wintle 12:01AM April 06, 2008

...should Bernanke apologize for doing his job? Which is to prevent a collapse of the monetary system, ala 1929-33.

Patrick R. Sullivan of WA 12:50PM March 25, 2008

Bernanke has maxed-out his (and our) credit card with Bear Stearns. It's time to go back to Econ 101 and restore integrity in the discount rate. I am not a Republican, but Grassley gets my vote!

Barney@Mizzou of MO 10:52AM March 25, 2008

It isn't just the $32B guarantee for Bear, it's the rest of the $200B and the just-announced additional $160B in "facilities." The U.S. taxpayer is well on the way to funding the nationalization of the mortgage market with the Fed's pledge to exchange treasuries for debt of unknown value. Those of us who were on the short side of the market get the double-whammy: a Bernanke bull surge plus the long term cost of paying for Wall Street's--and Main Street's-- f**k-up. For James who is so happy to have saved the $3 trillion haircut, I wonder what you'll say when the Fed runs out of bullets? Will they pay us to take on debt before long?
The biggest joke on those in the U.S. markets is that the so-called bull market since the early 1990's has actually been a bear market when viewed in terms of almost any currency besides the USD. Factor the currency exchange rates into your cute little bull market chart and you'll get a quite different picture, laddy boy.
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/GS-S-dollar-euro-C-jpm/index/a/16331

PD Quig of CA 8:59AM March 25, 2008

Bernanke just postponed the correction while making it worse. Nothing more. We'll have a weaker dollar because of this and more malinvestment. He hasn't fundamentally fixed anything.

Brian Macker of NY 7:44AM March 25, 2008

I have to say that 'James' is not a Greek name. Can't you come up with anything better than James. What would Zeus think of 'James'?
Gimme a break.
Xaipete!

Panayiotis Michael. 3:54AM March 25, 2008

Just because a politician is grandstanding doesn't mean he's not doing some good. Blind squirrel Grassley has found the Bear Stearns acorn.
Bear Stearns execs pocket a few billion in bonus money, despite rampant, fatal incompetence, and taxpayers are supposed to hand them and JP Morgan a blank check so Wall Street stops boo-hoo-hoo-ing? And we're supposed to like getting screwed?
If Bear Stearns was too big to fail, perhaps someone should answer the question were they simply too big? You can't leave profit (and bonuses) to the free market, while keeping losses under tight regulation. Free market capitalism involves winners and losers. Bear Stearns lost. Let 'em die and let's hope their brutally incompetent execs never work another day. Wall Street will be better -- and better at assessing risk vs. return -- if one of the giants is allowed to suffer the consequences of their own flagrant stupidity.
Hardcore conservative free marketeer over and out.

Gift Horse of NV 1:19AM March 25, 2008

Strong dollar policies favored Wall Street and American consumers but not American manufacturing and American workers. When the dollar was at its strongest at the beginning of the decade, US per capita GDP was around 50% greater than that of Japan and the major European economies. Does it make sense to anyone that over 50 years after WWII that there would be such a huge productivity gap between the US and the other G7 economies? Of course not. The overvalued dollar was penalizing US producers and hollowing out the economy.
Why can't Americans understand that an overvalued currency is harmful? During the early to mid 90s, there was a period where the yen had achieved such heights that Japanese per capita GDP was significantly higher than the US's. The Japanese government knew that such a valuation, while good for the ego, would have destroyed the competitiveness of the Japanese economy. They intervened and pushed the yen down against the dollar to a level where nominal Japanese per capita GDP was lower than the US, which also meant that Japanese labor had an advantage over US labor.
As for today's currency valuations, based on per capita GDPs, the dollar is closer today to where it should be in relation to the Euro and the yen.

ATM of OH 1:18AM March 25, 2008