LOLFED

I’m in ur financial system! Takin ur institutions under conservatorship!

A take on Bernanke and Paulson’s manifest destiny, from Lolo:

Stolen but we loved it. Thanks Jess! Click for fullsize.

If you’re wondering how Bernanke has been spending the part of his time where he isn’t on TV, I was sent this image by Jim Swift - Benny’s got pretty good Nats tickets there:

This reminds me, Benny has been taking a lot of heat from one particular baseball player lately. From iStockAnalyst:

Former major league pitcher, hall of famer, and current US Senator Jim Bunning (KY) threw a high hard one under the chin of Fed chariman Bernanke on Capitol Hill today. I don’t expect the media to cover this verbal brush back pitch, but they should. You know the drill when it comes to the media, they only focus on things they want you to know instead of the things you should know.

Bunning blasted Bernanke’s monetary easing, and blamed him for the decline of the dollar, rising oil prices and rising inflation.

Bunning’s statement today to the Senate Banking Committee re: the FOMC report is a good read. Bunning is not a fan of expanded Fed power.

Ben Bernanke spoke this morning about the importance of Fed power, and what a darn shame it is that the US Fed usually has to rely on “moral suasion” while other Feds have more explicit regulatory power over financial firms, and wouldn’t it be nice if he had that kind of authority too. I think it would be quite nice if we gave him a magic wand:

Full text of Bernanke speech here. Futures are still down, but they seemed to like this speech okay. Bernanke reiterated the importance of rescuing Bear Stearns a few times, and talked about how he’d like to reduce the number of times intervention is necessitated, but that, of course, means he is still happy to intervene in future cases.

A two-day gathering of tied hands! Bring your cameras!

CNBC is dancing around this morning, talking about inflation and Dow Chemical’s extensive price increases, then talking about increased unemployment, and food prices… if it wasn’t 8AM I’d make this into a drinking game and be waiting for someone to use the word “stagflation” to take a shot.  Futures look a little “meh” this morning for everything except (surprise!) oil.

So… the Fed is going to RAISE rates this year?

O RLY?

Unemployment, jittery housing, crunchy credit and Bernanke comes out all posturing like he’s gonna be able to raise rates? The market may have bought it for a day or two but I don’t believe it for a second. It’s nice and all to want to strengthen the dollar because gas costs an arm and a leg but Ben Bernanke won’t be able to raise rates in the US for a good long time. ‘Course now that he’s put on the hawk suit if he decides to hop back into the helicopter (and another rate cut by end of year wouldn’t surprise me, not that I am a fan of said action) he looks like an epic failure… not a position I’d wanna be in.

So Bernanke speaks tomorrow, and we might get an idea as to whether the most recent Fed rate cut really is the last. Retail numbers come out too, so we’ll see how those look pre-stimulus payment. How’s that glass looking, Benny?

I’m surprised Ceiling Cat didn’t drop in to check out this map of fail hotspots.

Bernanke spoke yesterday at Columbia b-school on the relative levels of mortgage fail in different areas of the US, differing causes, and what can be done to stop it. He pointed out that epic mortgage fail in areas such as the Midwest is more job-related, while in the South and West it’s more likely in cases where someone is suddenly $100K+ underwater on some no-doc ARM that readjusted or something. And, of course, he wants the FHA to help distressed borrowers, Congress to give more latitude to Fannie and Freddie, and those lenders to raise capital.

“Doing what we can to avoid preventable foreclosures is not just in the interest of lenders and borrowers. It’s in everybody’s interest,” he said.

Hawks will probably be disappointed with the FOMC statement today, as the whole thing says a whole lot of not much. Removed is the reference to downside risk of growth; however, no strong language suggesting a pause was inserted in its place. The market basically shrugged.

So, will it be one and done? Or nothing for the doves? We’ll find out at 2:30… futures are flat, but the dollar is still in modest rally mode - perhaps a sign that we’ll be making LOLTrichet rate cut graphics soon.