Obama picks Paul Volcher in charge of economic recover--do YOU remember Volker?--I do

[Sinatra]

Isn't he a bit old for the post?

A man in his 80s won't have the most dynamic ideas...

He's quite old, but still has a grasp on reality.

The entier adivsory board is a symbolic gesture that modern politicians are so keen on - they get good political mileage out of the spectacle while affording the board little actual power.

If Obama actually believed this board was an essential component to the economy, it would have been in place on day one and been an essential voice forming the porkulus bill. Instead, Obama give it over to Pelosi, who made it a joke, and now they are all scrambling to save face - thus the debate in the Senate today over porkulus.

Volker was an essential component to the Reagan boom of the 1980's. Each had a basic distrust of the other. Volker had, and still has, a huge ego though, and he loved being Fed Chair. Reagan knew that, and would use this weakness in Volker to get him to move the FED in the direction he wanted. There were those within the Reagan administration who deeply distrusted Volker and wanted him gone, but so long as Volker went along with Reagan's basic vision of the economy, his position was safe until the emergence of Greenspan, whom Reagan felt far more economic kinship with.

I read somewhere that Reagan was really the first President to understand the potential power of the FED -Reagan gave both Volker and Greenspan much leeway in developing FED policy (partly why Volker so enjoyed the position) and since that time, the importance of the FED to the American economy has remained significant.

Whether that is good or bad is certainly open to debate...

per a reader's request...

 

[KMAN]

Since I am old enough to remember Paul Volker--I will let you all know that Paul Volker was the federal reserve chairman during the Carter Adminstration. This when we had double-digit inflation, 18% fixed 30 year mortgage rates-& 10% unemployment, & short term interest rates over 20%.

Ronald Reagan gave Paul Volker the boot & installed Allan Greenspan as Fed Chairman-- who existed all the way into the Bush adminstration & through the fantastic economic growth we saw during the Bill Clinton years.

Is Obama giving Paul Volker a chance to redeem himself? He's not brilliant, in fact my experience with Paul Volker is extremely negative.

Also a member on this "new" so-called "brilliant" economic advisors is the CEO of G.E. GE's stock fell 45% this year, & also as you may be aware--GE ownes NBC--MSNBC--etc. A conflict of interest here? I would think so.

President Obama ironically admits that most of the employment lost in this country, a whopping 600,000 just this month, & 500,000 last month, has been in just the past two months. NOW PAY ATTENTION HERE: Note that these huge employment losses are "after" the already 700 billion banking bail-outs that were designed to save the banks & stimulate the economy along with several other billion in bail-outs given to certain industries. So what started as a "drip" in our economy in unemployment has escalated into faucet-open-full throdel, regardless of all these prior bail-outs that (started a few months ago.)

Ask yourselves:--What does that mean with this so-called now up to 937 BILLION--that is currently trying to be shoved down our throats, in this so-called stimulus for economic recovery? Hmm. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over again, while expecting a different result."

And this Obama guy is the smartest man in the world with the best judgement of any President...

 

[Truthmatters]

August 1987 is when Volker left the fed.

Why do you suppose Reagan left him in the position so long?

 

[Sinatra]

August 1987 is when Volker left the fed.

Why do you suppose Reagan left him in the position so long?

I suggest you read my earlier post outlining this very thing.

Volker did a good job at the FED in conjunction with the Reagan administration. It is this fact that has so many liberals currently upset with Obama's selection of him on his economic panel - which of course is neither fair or historically accurate.

 

[Diuretic]

Paul Volcker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Paul Volcker, a Democrat[4], was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve in August 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and reappointed in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.[5]

.Volcker's Fed is widely credited with ending the United States' stagflation crisis of the 1970s. Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983

The federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, was raised by Volcker to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% in '81 as well. [[1]]

These changes in policy contributed to the significant recession the U.S. economy experienced in the early 1980s, which included the highest unemployment levels since the Great Depression. These conditions were predictable by Carter when he appointed Volcker, and these circumstances contributed, predictably, to the defeat of Carter. Volcker's Fed also elicited the strongest political attacks and most wide-spread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve (unlike any protests experienced since 1922), due to the effects of the high interest rates on the construction and farming sectors, culminating in indebted farmers driving their tractors onto C Street NW and blockading the Eccles Building.[6]

This is important. I'm not persuaded by posters who use selective facts taken out of context and then try to make a point. I remember Volcker and his policies. That period around the world was just nuts. Here stagflation began in about 1972 I think and it hit us for six but it was doing so around the world. The moribund economy we had for 11 years was only rescued by a new government in 1983 that deliberately set about deregulating - but in a considered manner - our economy and thus saving it from an Argentina-style fate. Your extract informs me - it was happening everywhere and it wasn't the fault of an individual president or Federal Reserve chairman or a Prime Minister or Treasurer here.

 

[Chris]

The flow of Alaskan oil is what got us out of our problems in the 1980's.

Derivatives are what destroyed the market last year.