This is one of today's posts, and he's getting right at the heart of what today's GOP is all about -- behaving like a bunch of bullies out to cause as much destruction as possible because it's fun.
John Galt Hates Ben Bernanke
Ah: I see that there was a Twitter exchange among Brad DeLong, James Pethokoukis, and others over why Republicans don’t acknowledge that Ben Bernanke helped the economy, and claim credit. Pethokoukis — who presumably gets to talk to quite a few Republicans from his perch at AEI — offers a fairly amazing explanation:
B/c many view BB as enabling Obama’s spending and artificially propping up debt-heavy economy in need of Mellon-esque liquidation
Yep: that dastardly Bernanke was preventing us from having a financial crisis, curse him.
Actually, there’s a lot of evidence that this was an important part of the story. As I pointed out a couple of months ago, Paul Ryan and John Taylor went all-out conspiracy theory on the Bernanke Fed, claiming that its efforts were not about trying to fulfill its mandate, but rather that
This looks an awful lot like an attempt to bail out fiscal policy, and such attempts call the Fed’s independence into question.
Basically, leading Republicans didn’t just expect a disaster, they wanted one — and they were furious at Bernanke for, as they saw it, heading off the crisis they hoped to see. It’s a pretty awesome position to take. But it makes a lot of sense when you consider where these people were coming from.
After all, what is Atlas Shrugged really about? Leave aside the endless speeches and bad sex scenes. What you’re left with is the tale of how a group of plutocrats overthrow a democratically elected government with a campaign of economic sabotage.
Look, I know it sounds harsh to say that Republicans opposed QE in large part out of fear that it would work, and deliver a success to a president they hated. I mean, the next thing you know I’ll be accusing them of crazy things they would never do, like deliberately trying to undermine delicate nuclear negotiations. Oh, wait.
John Galt Hates Ben Bernanke
Ah: I see that there was a Twitter exchange among Brad DeLong, James Pethokoukis, and others over why Republicans don’t acknowledge that Ben Bernanke helped the economy, and claim credit. Pethokoukis — who presumably gets to talk to quite a few Republicans from his perch at AEI — offers a fairly amazing explanation:
B/c many view BB as enabling Obama’s spending and artificially propping up debt-heavy economy in need of Mellon-esque liquidation
Yep: that dastardly Bernanke was preventing us from having a financial crisis, curse him.
Actually, there’s a lot of evidence that this was an important part of the story. As I pointed out a couple of months ago, Paul Ryan and John Taylor went all-out conspiracy theory on the Bernanke Fed, claiming that its efforts were not about trying to fulfill its mandate, but rather that
This looks an awful lot like an attempt to bail out fiscal policy, and such attempts call the Fed’s independence into question.
Basically, leading Republicans didn’t just expect a disaster, they wanted one — and they were furious at Bernanke for, as they saw it, heading off the crisis they hoped to see. It’s a pretty awesome position to take. But it makes a lot of sense when you consider where these people were coming from.
After all, what is Atlas Shrugged really about? Leave aside the endless speeches and bad sex scenes. What you’re left with is the tale of how a group of plutocrats overthrow a democratically elected government with a campaign of economic sabotage.
Look, I know it sounds harsh to say that Republicans opposed QE in large part out of fear that it would work, and deliver a success to a president they hated. I mean, the next thing you know I’ll be accusing them of crazy things they would never do, like deliberately trying to undermine delicate nuclear negotiations. Oh, wait.
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