Grant and Wenzel, great, but for the Feds, a comedy team.

As someone asked under the comments.

Who was in attendance?

Normally these egotistic fed egg-heads invite these people for amusement.

Just remembered the smirk on Bernanke's face when Karl asked Bernanke a question a few years back. These fed people know there's no punishment for their mistakes.

Wow! Was Bernanke present??????? It would have been great to see the look on this face :) :) :)

But back here in the real world, it'll never happen. The politicians will never curb spending to buy votes, and interest rates will eat the Federal budget alive if the Fed lets them rise to something realistic.

Other than that, great speech though..........

They probably took it for humor.

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Just remembered the smirk on Bernanke's face when Karl asked Bernanke a question a few years back. These fed people know there's no punishment for their mistakes.

Video???

Loved the last line, that's a keeper.

How long is/was the Fed's Charter good for? Is there any reasonable way to revoke it and/or not renew it?

The Federal Reserve's charter can be revoked "at will" by Congress.

He is right of course. The question is who will write the history of this period. People will twist this and try to make the Fed less of the cause. Revisionist history is the worst kind.

He gives two outcomes, keep printing and get huge price inflation or stop printing and have a massive economic crash. Which is more likely? Is there anything in-between like 20 years of stagnation?

He calls for ending the Fed. Do you know what his thoughts are on what would replace the Fed?

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Video???

Part 1 (27:43). Karl Denninger's emailed question comes at the 18 minute mark. Once each of the videos finishes streaming, you will be able to fast-forward or rewind them at will.

http://dailybail.com/home/complete-inter....

That was, as you said, well worth reading. Too bad it will have no effect.

Now THAT is a genuine example of "speaking truth to power".

Too bad power isn't listening. Which is usually the case.

terrorist !

flat earther !

supply sider !

all in all a good speech that will promptly be ignored

Did they turn white and did their *******s pucker?

Krugman will certainly have something to say.

Now that's some intelligent discourse.
I'm definitely no fan of the Fed, but the fact that they listened to this speech is laudable in my opinion.
/looking for the positive

I read that Saturday after seeing it on zerohedge.com and I also had the thought after reading it, "Will it make a difference?". Will those in attendance belonging to that auspicious organization listen and do the right thing? Not hardly. As Karl pointed out, Congress can dump the Fed. But can we expect Congress to do what is right? Cue the "roll on floor laughing" animation. Sadly, probably nothing will happen. As our "Titanic Ship of State" lists farther over...glub...glub...and we "party on"...

Yeah, read that over the weekend as well. I'm so glad he's putting this out there in the public record so they can't hide behind the excuse "Nobody saw it coming, or if they did, they didn't tell us!"

But the Fed really doesn't have many options at this point. As the speech points out, they can either stop printing and crash everything today or print to infinity and destroy the currency tomorrow. A balanced budget won't fly in CONgress, so they've got to keep printing.

It's CONgress' job to make budgetary decisions. So even if the Fed tried door #1, CONgress would use them as a scapegoat, revoke their charter and create some other Fed2.0 to keep the debt flowing.

The purpose of the Federal Reserve is to make money for the banks. It is Federal in name and profits only, as it allows the government to finance a portion of its debt for free. Amazing they turned what we have to what we owe them, one of the great schemes. The biggest joke is the government is us, so we owe it to ourselves. No, the government is a group that is concerned with themselves. The people are their plow horses.

There is nothing wrong with making money on savings. In a system that was supposed to be set up to favor no man at the expense of another, banking monopolies or any other state created monopoly should be taboo. Banking, through the reserve system, functions only through government supported fraud. As KD likes to point out, 33 to 1 leverage is a crapshoot when it permeates the entire economy. The idea the banking system is allowed to create money at our expense and to their benefit goes even further. When the Fed does what it is doing, it devalues what the banks owe us to the benefit of the bankers, who are set up to earn interest off their money and ours, well in excess of the rate of inflation and to the benefit of those in position to benefit from government spending. The socialists might claim that we all benefit, but who has to earn money to pay the debts? It is those other than who gets to manufacture the debts. There is no such thing as a unit of exchange that has no tangible value and of which value fluctuates at the whim of a small group. This is dishonest, a form of stealing from one group to benefit another.

The bubble are rounding into a final collapse. Central banks and governments create most sustained bubbles. I believe the final bubble in America is going to be the health care bubble. There isn't any competition in this game, namely because the government doesn't want any competition. Its primary effort is to sustain the bubble. But, what happens when the amount of money needed to sustain the bubble exceeds the capacity of the remaining economy to pay for the necessary growth? I think it collapses.

Health care is the growth industry in the USA, because government has provided the means to create this bubble. 3% growth, 2% inflation against a game that grows 9% sustained for decades doesn't add. Not only that, the services provided by the system have been depleted over the decades. Who can get in to see a doctor on a whim now? I haven't used the healtcare industry much for 30 years, two emergency trip to the hospitals, one likely out of panic. The idea you need a referral to see a doctor is insane. The idea that basic drugs can wipe out a person is insane.

The great secret is the purpose of the Fed and banking in general is to allow for these bubbles, which provide massive income to those that hold the right assets and leave those that buy them from these people holding the bag. It does nothing for the basic economy. The idea we need rising prices is pure bunk, only necessary to keep the income flowing to the bankers and the monopolists. Most monopolies cease to be monopolies in a free economy. Only in a government endowed system do they continue.

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So, how was the lunch?

Roast Bernanke, served medium rare with bernaise sauce.

Those guys will never bite the hand of the Establishment that feed them. What needs to be done is to keep debunking and ridiculing their theories in public. Maybe they'll get tired of it and go away.

To me this Know Nothing argument about "constants" is getting old. Of course there are constants in economics, of which Wenzel points out the most basic after railing against their existence. Viz...

Robert Wenzel wrote..

In the science of physics, we know that water freezes at 32 degrees. We can predict with immense accuracy exactly how far a rocket ship will travel filled with 500 gallons of fuel. There is preciseness because there are constants, which do not change and upon which equations can be constructed..

There are no such constants in the field of economics since the science of economics deals with human action, which can change at any time. If potato prices remain the same for 10 weeks, it does not mean they will be the same the following day. I defy anyone in this room to provide me with a constant in the field of economics that has the same unchanging constancy that exists in the fields of physics or chemistry.

Then, lo and behold, four bare paragraphs later, he hangs himself with his own logic:

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I also find curious the general belief in the Keynesian model of the economy that somehow results in the belief that demand drives the economy, rather than production. I look out at the world and see iPhones, iPads, microwave ovens, flat screen televisions, which suggest to me that it is production that boosts an economy. Without production of these things and millions of other items, where would we be? Yet, the Keynesians in this room will reply, “But you need demand to buy these products.” And I will reply, “Do you not believe in supply and demand? Do you not believe that products once made will adjust to a market clearing price?”

Further , I will argue that the price of the factors of production will adjust to prices at the consumer level and that thus the markets at all levels will clear. Again do you believe in supply and demand or not?

I scratch my head that somehow most of you on some academic level believe in the theory of supply and demand and how market setting prices result, but yet you deny them in your macro thinking about the economy.

Wait a minute. So the market-clearing function of supply and demand is a constant? I thought you just said there weren't any. Eh, that's as far as I got reading this tripe.

Look, the behavior of the weather is wholly based on physics. Including constants such as water freezing at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. So why is it that weathermen do not bat 1000 at predicting freezes?

Economics is based on the constants of scarcity and human nature's predictable attempts to react to it: e.g. buy low, sell high; supply and demand; blah, blah, blah. It is the complexities of their interactions -- comparable to that of weather systems -- not their non-existence, which makes all attempts at central planning royal FAILs. And that are proof positive that the only mechanism smart enough to produce prosperity is the uncoerced and unsubsidized interaction of multi-millions of private individuals and firms in a FREE MARKET. Against which all the brain power of every central banker and economist in the world is a fart in the hurricane.

Meanwhile, eegads. Talk about making a fool of yourself in educated company...

A constant is not a function. A function relates variables, but if you can never pin any of the variables down, your conclusions are that much more error-prone.

Will the water be frozen when it falls from the sky? You can answer that much more accurately knowing that water is always frozen at 32 degrees. Maybe you don't know exactly the temperature of the air the water is falling through, so you get it wrong.

But, "supply and demand" where demand is made up of "human nature and scarcity" in and of itself is not very helpful. In your weather example, it'd be like knowing that water freezes "when it's cold".