Darda: Hypocrisy, Stupidity, Ignorance

Mike Darda offered a scathing review of Ben Bernanke’s July testimony to Congress–not of the Fed chairman’s performance, but his interrogators’: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTdkMDkxZjMzNWNiNTgwYzZhNWUxNjZlY2NiZTY1OTY

"Many congressmen and women have tried to beat up Bernanke over wages not rising fast enough relative to inflation (including food and energy). Not only do many members of Congress have their facts wrong (real non-supervisory wages have risen at two times the rate during this cycle than the first five-and-a-half years of the last), but they’re inconsistent since not one would want the chairman to hike the funds rate because of the elevated energy prices they decry. In other words, congressional “leaders” berate the Fed chairman over high energy prices, lampoon him for a focus on core inflation, and then scold him for having raised rates too much! It’s a heady combination of hypocrisy, stupidity, and ignorance that’s otherwise known as Washington D.C."

Good points all. And if memory serves, there was little posturing on behalf of "big oil" when crude prices sank to $10-20/bbl around 1998; starry eyed pols lacked the understanding and/or cajones to pin much of the blame on ‘el Maestro’ (though a quick search did turn up this interesting transcript from an episode of PBS’ Frontline on the 1998 stock market panic: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crash/etc/script.html).

Darda also offers the following argument, which echoes the observations we’ve been making here about federal policymaking:  

"…it would be helpful if the congressional leadership resisted lowering structural productivity to a rate below the Fed’s reduced forecasts by way of totally unnecessary and growth-retarding tax hikes on capital and labor. Sadly, the U.S. shift toward economic populism and tax hikes, and away from free trade, is coming at a time when most of the rest of the world is moving down the Laffer curve by cutting tax rates and removing obstacles to commerce. Perhaps it’s time for Congress to end the clown show and become acquainted with the basics of monetary policy and pro-growth economics. American competitiveness and prosperity depends on it." [emphasis added]