Volcker Receives Honor from Stanford

Former Federal Reserve Chief, Paul Volcker, received an honor from the Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research last Tuesday for his efforts to stamp out inflation in the 1980's. He chided Americans for their consumption and lack of investment that creates good jobs. Frankly, Volcker has no one to blame but himself. The Fed's actions under his reign put the economy into a tailspin from which it has not recovered. The good jobs kept leaving since then to be replaced by poorly paying service jobs at the low end and financial services jobs at the high end. Volcker blamed those who took the latter jobs for the current mess. Although inflation was tough, it was the banks who were really under its yoke. Where there was about twelve percent inflation, many homeowners had six percent loans. While their wages probably did not keep up with inflation, the home payments became less and less of a monthly burden. The banks saw this as paying negative interest and this was the reason Volcker was tasked to stamp out inflation and destroy many small businesses and put many out of their homes through the loss of jobs.

Paul Volcker is an adviser to the Obama administration and along with Timothy Geithner, former head of the New York Fed, we now have a bunch of foxes patrolling the hen house.