Palin Tells Bernanke to 'Cease and Desist' on Easing
09 Nov 2010 | 04:38 AM ET Thomson Reuters
Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin on Monday weighed in on the global debate over the Federal Reserve's $600 billion plan to buy up government debt, suggesting Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should "cease and desist."
"We shouldn't be playing around with inflation," Palin, who is widely seen as a prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said in remarks prepared for a Monday speech in Phoenix.
"We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation, which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It's the only way we can get our economy back on the right track."
Excerpts of the remarks were published online by the conservative National Review magazine. Palin's staff was not immediately available for comment.
The report said the remarks would be delivered in a keynote address at a trade association convention.
Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, is a top Republican Party figure and leader of the Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans recapture control of the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
Fed Audits, Abolition?
The loosely organized political network includes conservatives and libertarians, some of whom would like to abolish the Federal Reserve system, which operates independent of the federal government.
Voter outrage over Fed bailouts and other actions helped propel many Republican candidates on Election Day, including Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul, who has favored abolition of the agency.
His father, House Republican Ron Paul, another Tea Party favorite who has run for president twice, intends to push to audit Fed monetary policy decisions next year if - as expected - he wins control of a congressional subcommittee that oversees the central banks.
Representative Paul Ryan, expected to become chairman of the House Budget Committee when Republicans take control of the chamber in January, said on Sunday the advantages of the central bank's move to inject more money into the U.S. economy "are very low."
"I think it's going to give us a big inflation problem down the road," Ryan said.
President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials defend the Fed's decision to buy $600 billion in U.S. Treasury debt as a means to stimulate the economy and maintain global stability.
Palin's remarks add her to to a growing list of critics, including officials from China, Germany and Brazil, who are concerned that the Fed plan could bring instability instead.
"If it doesn't work, what do we do then? Print even more money? What's the end game here?," she asked. "All this pump priming will come at a serious price."
She appeared to align herself with recent criticism from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
"The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals 'clueless.' When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist," Palin said.
Palin has not said whether she will make a White House bid in 2012. But she has been using public appearances to build up her political and policy credentials for the job.
Did you see this video? It says how WW I got started - JPM show drama start stamp 25 ~
Tax cut for the top 3% rich?It's disappointment that Americans have to deal with the 3% high income tax cut.The bottomline is that:1) Americans are defrauded,2) Politicians are puppets,3) Don't trust what politicians or media is saying,4) Always check on other side of any stories being hyped5) Millions of Americans' unemployment payment being expired as of 11/30/2010,6) Most of Republicans-Democrats are defrauding Americans,7) Republicans are fighting over Bush tax-cut -- working for rich 3% to get tax-cut,8) USA is going bankrupt while politicians and the Fed Reserve is spinning stories, etc -- Americans and all must see realities.BUSH BOOK NIGHTMARE -- he is not going to fool me again!The Republican Tax-cut and the Bush new book could be prelude of the Republican-Bush nightmare.
As for praying for America and Americans as well as all around the globe - as a Christian, I was praying for my country and all, but evidently millions of Americans are completely fooled. It's was the Bush alert which I responded in July 2004 -- and ever since then, I am having Nightmare after Nightmare -- deception after deception. Almost all which I believed was deception and fraud and it seems that Bush is trying to fool Americans again.
Most of Americans are still being fooled and naive about realities.
I AM NOT GOING TO BE FOOLED AGAIN!
Bush's 14 Decision Points
Despite former President Bush's decision to appear in selected venues of the media circuit to promote his apologia, I still stand by my judgment.
Among President Bush's many bad decisions I would list the following fourteen, in my opinion as a presidential biographer and historian, to have been his most egregious, both in getting to the White House, and then as Caesar of the United States:
1. Bush's decision in 1999 to leave the Texas governor's mansion and pursue the U.S. presidency -- a post he knew, in his heart of hearts, he did not have the intellect, qualifications, or qualities of character to occupy successfully. Even his own wife begged him not to do it.
2. Bush's use of Karl Rove and the "dirty tricks brigade" to destroy his Republican rival, Senator McCain in the 2000 primaries -- just as he had, together with Lee Atwater, destroyed Governor Mike Dukakis' bid for the presidency on behalf of his father, twelve years before.
3. Bush's decision to take Dick Cheney as his vice presidential nominee -- an ambitious apparatchik who had, in running the selection process for the VP position, damned all other contenders.
4. Bush's decision to abandon peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and concentrate on war in the Middle East, instead. ("A show of strength by one side can really clarify things.")
5. Bush's decision to make Karl Rove his Presidential Adviser, with no less than four Political Offices on the second floor of the White House -- further polarizing the country.
6. Bush's decision to demote his inherited Counterterrorism Czar, Richard Clarke, and rely on his inexperienced National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in the months before 9/11, despite more and more evidence pointing to an imminent attack on the U.S.
7. Bush's subsequent decision to call for a general "war on terror," rather than targeted pursuit and destruction of those responsible for 9/11 -- dubbing his response a "crusade."
8. Bush's decision to invade and occupy the whole of Afghanistan -- without seizing the head of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.
9. Bush's decision to then attack and occupy Iraq, without evidence of WMD, and against the advice of his own Secretary of State, General Colin Powell.
10. Bush's decision to disband the Iraqi army and declare "Mission Accomplished" -- leaving the very country that the U.S. had invaded prey to civil, ethnic and religious war.
11. Bush's decision to pursue a policy of secrecy and deceit, and ignore those members of the Justice Department who called for accountability in dealing with suspects -- recklessly sullying America's reputation in the free world to satisfy Vice President Cheney, who became a law unto himself -- unaccountable to anyone.
12. Bush's decision to authorize the virtual assassination of his rival in the 2004 presidential election, the courageous and combat-decorated Senator John Kerry - just as McCain and Dukakis had been trashed by his team, only this time hiding behind "Swift Boats For Truth."
13. Bush's decision to appoint a director of the Arabian Horse Federation as his FEMA chief, his complete failure to federalize the response to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and his congratulation of Michael Brown for doing "a heck of a job" on the people of New Orleans and Louisiana.
14. Bush's decision to pursue policies of minimal Wall Street regulation, lower tax for the rich, zero interest in the Kyoto protocols, the growing national deficit - and an almost complete absence of preparation or response to the housing crisis, derivatives trading and collapse of Wall Street which came on his watch.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-hamilton/bushs-14-decision-points_b_780505.html
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