Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
William Dudley, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, recen
tly visited Queens where he got a “street-corner” education on the cost of living. Evidently, the Federal Reserve has been trying to sell its monetary policy to average folks—who aren’t exactly buying into to its talking points.
Dudley, a former chief economist for Goldman Sachs, gave a speech in Queens in which he spoke about the economy’s progress and the Fed’s successes. When the question and answer period rolled around, people in the audience wanted to know why the prices for food and gas were rising. As noted in a Wall Street Journal article—“the Fed doesn’t think food and gas prices matter to its policy calculations because they aren’t part of “core” inflation.”
Dudley told his listeners that the economy was recovering and that inflation was under control. He tried to explain to his audience that the prices of some goods and products were indeed falling. “Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful,” he said. “You have to look at the prices of all things.”
Unfortunately for Dudley, those comments prompted guffaws and murmurings from the audience. One person reportedly quipped, “I can’t eat an iPad!” Someone else asked Dudley, “When was the last time, sir, that you went grocery shopping?”
Do people who work for the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street firms, the politicians in Washington, and wealthy industrialists really know what is going on in this country? Do they understand how hard it is for working people and the unemployed? Do they even care?
Sources
@Tracy Walter – too easy. bobo.
if i love art, vintage clothing, organic clothing, everything vintage style from the way i decorate my room to the shoes i wear, oldies and indie music, gypsy music and clothing, love the outdoors, shop mostly at REI, IKEA, whole foods, trader joe’s, eat strictly organic food, buy organic products, am not a christian, but am an environmentalist, gay-right activist, animal lover, vegan, love to be physically fit and secretly despise fat people, wish i was European, have a special fondness for living in camping trailers, own the latest tech products (i have 2 iPhones and 2 iPads), want to move to San Fran one day, think the best time of the year is when i spend it at Burning Man, and gravitate towards other people who also subscribe to the aforementioned characteristics… If this is the kind of person I am, and you were to generalize me and put me into one specific social category, which would it be?
What do you mean “You can’t eat an iPad”? I can certainly eat WITH iPads – I use two of them like chopsticks to pinch up caviar. Of course, you have to throw them out after each meal, but they’re so cheap! I guess poor people could have their staff wash off their glass surfaces – the caviar comes off pretty easily – or so my servants seem to say in their broken English…
(Keep in mind: GDP growth does us no good if all of it goes into the pockets of the top 1% or the top 0.01%)
Sorry keyboard problem. Back when fixed.
“If I had one wish that would make the world a better place it would be that all these isolated, well-off assholes would have to spend a year working a minimum wage job and living life as actual poor people do in the US. The only way a sociopath feels pain is if it is there own.”
Frank,
I wish it also. However, the problem is that thse people wouldn’t
learn from this experience. It really would be analogous to the
racist who has a black co-worker he/she likes and feels that co-worker is a great person “but not like the rest of them.”
There is an awful “relity” show on called “Undercover Boss,”
where a CEO works “undercover” in his/her own company, among the
lower tiered workers. At the end of the show each person he/she
works with is given an interview and a gift of some kind, for which they are supposed to feel grateful. The show purports to be
about bosses understanding their workers problems, but is really
a reinforcement of the Feudal concept of “Noblesse Oblige.” In the end rather than blurring class distintions
If I had one wish that would make the world a better place it would be that all these isolated, well-off assholes would have to spend a year working a minimum wage job and living life as actual poor people do in the US. The only way a sociopath feels pain is if it is there own.
To answer your questions in the last paragraph:
No.
No.
No.
And let us not forget the past actions of Antoinette Dudley:
In December 1984, William C. Dudley, an employee of JP Morgan, authored a pamphlet entitled “Rethinking Glass Steagall”. “Rethinking Glass Steagall,” plotted an offensive to break the Glass-Steagall Act and return to the pre-FDR era.
In 2010 Antoinette gave a lecture at Fordham Corporate Law Center in which he talked about the recovery:
“The third, and perhaps most important, factor that is going to restrain the recovery is that the banking system has still not fully recovered. Bank credit losses lag the business cycle, and those losses are still climbing. Thus, while banks’ access to the capital markets has sharply improved, banks are still capital constrained and hesitant to expand their lending. Most importantly, some significant classes of borrowers-namely commercial real estate and small business borrowers-are almost wholly dependent on the banking sector for funds, and those funds are not easily forthcoming.”
Honest to god … the guy who helped break Glass Steagall actually has the balls to give a lecture on the banking system and recovery and how the banking system is holding up the recovery. He was a big part of the problem from the getgo yet he still has a job and actually convinces people he knows what he’s doing.
Time for a reality check …“I can’t eat an iPad!”
I can just hear all those people in the audience at Fordham …”What? What does that man mean when he says “I can’t eat an ipad”?”
“My good man, if you can’t eat an ipad … do as we do, eat cake while listening to the wise words of Antoinette Dudley!”
I wonder if this is really what he meant….I am sure after the 3 Martini lunch errs can slip the lips…
Yesterday the US government won a case against a citizen who chose to create and use silver coins for exchange instead of counterfeit US dollars. From the FBI:
Outrageous. A free people can use whatever unit of exchange they choose, just as central banks do with gold.
From wiki…
“Goldman Sachs was sued on April 16, 2010 by the SEC for the fraudulent selling of a collateralized debt obligation tied to subprime mortgages, a product which Goldman Sachs had created.[8]”
“Blankfein testified before Congress in April 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.[improper synthesis?] He said that Goldman Sachs had no moral or legal obligation to inform its clients it was betting against the products which they were buying from Goldman Sachs because it was not acting in a fiduciary role.[9]”
God’s work, huh?
One word that makes me see red: Goldman Sachs.
Current CEO “doing God’s work” Blankfein. Henry Paulson. Commoditizing food. Exorbitant bonus’ after the market crashed.
Definitely thought less of Buffet too after he bought in with them, making a killing in the process.
I have no words to spill my distaste.
I stand by exactly what I wrote on this blog in 2008:
The Federal Reserve system empowers the government to wage unpopular and undeclared wars that don’t require citizens to pay through direct taxes. Instead, the government funds wars involuntarily through inflation. The Federal Reserve is the financial foundation of the US empire and should be abolished. If today’s war in Libya and the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan had to be paid through direct taxation they would never have been started.
Back when Nixon declared a payment of $50 to all taxpayers, the mother of an acquaintance had a stunning revelation for me. Now, this is an elegant patrician lady, widow of a wealthy doctor and comes from old money.
She said, “When all those people get that money, they are not going to spend it like Nixon thinks. They will just put it into their investment portfolio.”
Mike S.,
I happen to be of the opinion that some people choose to be willfully ignorant.
Like Antoinette Dudley is probably not a bad person. merely insulated the the day to day lives of most of the people. If he formerly worked for goldman, he’s probably wealthy. Ignorance can
often have bad consequences provided by those who purport to lead us.