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Ben Bernanke should resign

By WILLIAM A. COLLINS

Poring through

Bernanke’s pitch;

It all seems geared,

To aid the rich.

HAVING NOW undermined America’s financial system, eviscerated the dollar and greased the skids for millions of homeowners to become renters again, Ben Bernanke should turn in his password and his limo, submit his resignation and sail off into exile.

And that journey should require a fair-sized yacht because he might as well cart Alan Greenspan, Henry Paulson and a serious list of former treasury secretaries along with him.

The Cayman Islands would be a fine locale. It’s already steeped in financial chicanery. The new settlement might be called “Shenanigans.” It could advertise in The Wall Street Journal for more settlers. Bermuda or Panama would be similarly qualified. And we’re not even talking here about presidents, senators, Congress members, et al. Not yet.

The underlying philosophy of these moguls is plainly that what’s good for Wall Street is good for America. However, such “wisdom” is more supported by their gravity of countenance and cost of wardrobe than by any commendable public record. Rampant credit card companies and devious mortgage speculators have plagued our citizens for a generation, while the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have largely winked approvingly.

TAKE THE ongoing destructive housing bubble. Non-profit economists have been warning about it for years. And do you think it was kept secret from Mr. Bernanke that Bear Stearns and other avaricious investment bankers were gathering up fishy mortgages and sugar-coating them as high-yield investments? Who’s kidding whom? The whole administration knew what was going on. It’s just that no one wanted to spoil the fun.

Thanks, guys! Here in Connecticut, where many of those culprits live, you notice less willingness these days for distinguished-looking gentlemen to look you in the eye. Some have lost their jobs, but others are being bailed out at our expense.

Yes, the Fed is lending cheap money to these giant investment banks in order to “protect our financial system.” Too bad they couldn’t find a way to lend that money to you and me at 2.25 percent. That would rocket up the economy a whole lot faster than subsidizing Bear Stearns.

Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve, despite its plenary banking powers, has never viewed its role as a protector of individual citizens. That would be like giving flak vests to the deer during hunting season. We deer are simply the bottom of the food chain and should be prepared to sacrifice our financial lives for the welfare of banks, credit card issuers, investment houses and hedge funds. They’re the ones who make our country great, providing us with jobs and loans that allow us to buy and lose our homes.

In the end, the Fed’s grand scheme of supporting the big guys failed to support us. But don’t fret…it wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to give opportunity to wealth, greed and avarice to keep turning those quarterly profits. But on the inside, most players knew that it couldn’t last. They just wanted a few more juicy quarters before nature took its course.

Well, nature has now arrived, the financial landscape is strewn with victims, the big guys are reveling in cheap interest, and the dollar is on life support. Fed and Treasury leaders ought to apologize, resign and go away. Is there no shame? Sure, the president would then just appoint some new turkeys, but it would be a good precedent. Bernanke and Paulson are lucky this isn’t ancient Japan, where such ill motive required harsher penance.

Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn.

(Distributed by Minuteman Media)