0201 2012 Let’s give the Fed a third mandate – Avoiding income/wealth distribution inequality

A kid came home with his report card. It shows 4 F’s and 1 D. So his father in his stern face asked him “What happened?” The kid with tearful eyes fearfully murmured, “I know where I did wrong Dad, I spent too much of my time on only one subject …”

If you blame Ben Bernanke about what a mess the Fed has made to this country in terms of income/wealth distribution inequality within the last decade, he would most likely give you an answer of defense in his typical lip’s movements beneath the mustache only that it is not his job to give it a damn. It is the Congress’ fault that they only gave him and the Fed two mandates of fighting inflation and stimulating the economy/job creation only.

So forget about downgrading and removing one of the mandates and let the Fed focus on maintaining price stability only. We should ask them to upgrade and start focusing on three mandates, fighting future inflation, lowering unemployment and avoiding income/wealth distribution inequality.

Even when that happens, I am afraid that little school boy Ben would most likely come home with a report card with 2 F’s on fighting future inflation and avoiding income/wealth distribution inequality and a D in lowering unemployment/job creation so far. He most likely would have spent too much of his time on only one subject.

Let’s hope by adding this new dimension of avoiding income/wealth distribution inequality would make the Fed’s taxpayers sponsored jobs a bit more deserving than simply doing nothing but the two dimensional game of thumbs up or thumbs down on interest rates during their Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings.

P.S. Perhaps Ben deserves an A for the extra-curricular activity and self-created mandate of helping bail out the cronies?

Filed under: Economic Viewpoints, Federal Government, Uncategorized, Bailing out cronies, Ben Bernanke, Fed's mandates, Federal Reserve, Fighting inflation, Income/wealth distribution inequality, Job creation, Lowering unemployment, Maintaining price stability, Stimulating economy