International Law

How to Close Barn Doors - Part 1, After the Horse has Left

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The USA Today has a little snippet from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake, who demonstrates Bernake's deep ignorance of fraud.

"Americans need to sharpen their financial know-how to help them best use their money, especially during the current economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.

"As the global economy continues to experience extraordinary turbulence ... the need has never been greater for initiatives that help consumers learn to manage their money wisely," Bernanke said in brief taped remarks kicking off a conference on financial literacy in Chicago sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank there and Visa.

Not having any credit because the big banks blew themselves up, with the taxpayers paying for it, will sharpen your personal budgeting skills - you have less decisions to make.

Warren Buffett, on the other hand, is someone deeply knowledgable about lack of reason and fraud.

Here is a short part of the transcript of Buffett on the creation of the housing bubble.

""I mean people -- people don't get -- they don't get smarter about things that get as basic as greed and you can't stand to see your neighbor getting rich. 

You know you're smarter than he is, and he's doing these things, you know, and he's getting rich, and your spouse is getting unhappy with you because you aren't doing -- pretty soon you start doing it. 

And so you get what I call the natural progression, the three Is.  The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots. 

And that's what happens.  Everybody just kind of goes along.  And you look kind of silly if you disagree. 

I mean, you know, you could have these crazy Internet valuations in the late 1990s, but they prove themselves out in the market. 

The next day they were selling for more than they were the day before, and people said, you know, you're crazy if you don't get in on this. 

So it's very human. 

Now, with housing it's something even more dramatic than that, because most people aspire to own their own home. 

And if you really think that houses prices are going to go up next year and the year after, you feel if I don't buy it this year, I'm going to have to buy it next year. 

That's not true of an Internet stock.  But it's true of a home."

Please have the Chairman of the Federal Reserve explain how financial literacy is going to break the Buffett bubble cycle.  Not going to happen.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).