I saw this funny cartoon the other day. It features the former head of the Federal Reserve of the United States Ben Bernanke and the current head of the Federal Reserve of the United States Janet Yellen. Bernanke's solution to the financial crisis of 2008 was a fancy term call quantitative easing, otherwise known as printing money. He printed money for 7 years. He did this day after day. He did this until the Federal Reserve printed over 3 trillion dollars. That is right trillions not billions. What happened to that money. Well the cartoon depicts big Ben dropping the money from the sky as he flies around on his broomstick.
Janet Yellen took over the Federal Reserve when big Ben retired last year. The cartoon suggests that she will follow the policy of big Ben and continue printing money. In fact, the cartoon suggests that she is "new and improved." I guess that means that she is going to print even more cash than he did.
Not so fast. She initially did continue printing cash. But then in December she stopped. Not only did she stop, she raised interest rates for the first time in 9 years. She only raised rates a tiny, tiny, little. little bit from 0 percent to 1/4 of 1 percent.
No big deal right????????????? WRONG !!!!!!!! The stock market is down almost ten percent in the first 15 days of the year-- its worst start to a year in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.
What now? I think Yellen better get back on that broomstick of hers and start dropping cash out of the sky again before the sky itself falls.
The cartoonist likes her more, you can tell by the broomsticks. Hers is slick and combed on the end while is looks like to one that caught on fire in Harry Potter. Yet, this has nothing to do with the idea besides "new." Like you said, the artist does think that she will print more, but the artist explains this within the money itself. As you may notice, Ben is dropping bills from the sky, "making it rain" if you will. Yet Janet is dropping bundles, "making it hail." This is the artist's way of saying (as you said) he thinks she will print more than he. So overall i agree with you, but the artist exaplains it with pictures not words.
ReplyDeleteuncle drew seems like some funny and great character and I have enjoyed every bit of it while reading and like your work.
ReplyDeleteThe cartoonist presented the most problematic issue in a light and funny way. Excessive printing of money simply devalues the currency and creates inflation in the market. So yes if she has created this issue she must come to resolve it.
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