First, it seems to me that this method will put far more money into active circulation that the previous two rounds of Quantitative Easing, and is thus FAR more likely to lead to short and medium term price inflation. I did not predict it before, but I predict it now. We will see price increases starting in 3 to 6 months, if this continues. Not hyperinflation, hopefully, but steady decreases in our buying power, which are the result of give-aways to trillion dollar banks.
Previously, Bernanke took government bonds off the hands of major investment banks. Whether they invested it or not was up to them, and given our lack of inflation, they either put that money somewhere else, or are sitting on it.
Now, they will be effectively doing what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did, which is buy up mortgage backed securities, many of which are likely unvalue-able–whose true value is impossible to determine–and which for that reason are not otherwise moving. Basically, the Fed is likely just using its power to create money to fluff up the balance sheets of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others. This will however create an immediate incentive to create MORE mortgage backed securities, and in effect amounts to a guarantee that all such securities created in the next few months will be purchased, particularly if the bank in question is plugged in politically to the core elite making the buying decisions.
Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly–less obviously–I think this amounts to a decision by the Fed to do what it can over the next two months to improve the economy, and thus is a tacit endorsement of Obama. The action is being taken now because any capable mind can readily see how easily it will be to blame the murder of Christopher Stevens and the three others on Obama’s foreign policy. After all, we helped topple Gaddafi’s regime, in an undeclared war, without the support of Congress, and more or less under the command of the UN. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, that attack would have not have happened under Gaddafi’s regime. He decided to stay home and play dress-up after Reagan made him crap his pants back in the 1980’s, in a paradigmatically effective use of power projection.
It is a reliable article of Democrat propaganda that they stand up to the power elite, in the name of the “common man”. If it was ever true, it no longer is. Obama took a LOT of money from Wall Street, which more or less wrote his Wall Street “Reform” act. That act will HELP Wall Street; it will not hinder its excesses in the slightest, and in fact guarantees government bailouts, as I understand it.
Romney is a politician, which means he goes whichever way the wind blows. Right now, the wind is blowing in the direction of auditing the Fed. The main opponent right now is Harry Reid, and the Democrat majority. Behind them stands Obama, who can be counted on also to veto the bill since he depends on Fed member banks for his campaign cash.
Romney is not as reliable an ally as Obama. He is a Republican, and as such has to respond to the Republican base, which is drifting steadily rightward (might I coin the term “reasonward”).
Bernanke had been sitting on his hands. One to two days after the attacks, he announced a policy very much to the liking of those who stand to benefit from the largesse of the power elite.
I will remind people that the Federal Reserve Act was sponsored by a Democrat, and signed into law by a Democrat, after having failed as a Republican sponsored law. When the Republicans called for it, they were seen, accurately, as standing for the interests of the big banks alone, and against the interests of ordinary Americans. So these people just bought a Democrat, passed virtually an identical law, and achieved propagandistic superiority. For this reason, it is easily argued that the more favorable party for the very people that rank and file Democrats think they are opposing have their interests served BEST by Democrats.
These are the sorts of outcomes that happen when you don’t read the fine print, when you don’t retain the habit of critical examination and rational house-cleaning (sweeping up the errors, mopping up the fallacies), and instead rely on assumptions and propaganda designed to lull you to sleep.