Harried Money Emperor Ben Bernanke testified in Congress again today about upcoming financial regulation measures and apparently pleased the Socialists by saying that increased transparency won’t do the trick — you have to straight-up ban certain financial instruments, starting with, say, the ones where lenders throw trillions of dollars of credit at random hobos without so much as even asking their names. Rep. Michele Bachmann was awarded some valuable questioning time during this taxpayer-funded government meeting, and got right to the heart of the matter: what are you going to do about ACORN, and is there going to be a New Global Currency that we’ll have to use by like tomorrow? Barney Frank and Ben Bernanke take these questions very seriously. [HuffPo, YouTube]

Hey, a new survey about things people don’t know: Gallup asked some random selection of Americans who haven’t had their phones shut off to rate nine major federal agencies they may or may not have heard about, on the AM radio. The results are … bad news for, let’s see, Ben Bernanke? Sure! MORE »

Barack Obama ate a hamburger… Sarah Palin got a gun… torture, they’re still going on about that… Sean Hannity is insane… what else today? Oh right, the thing, the thing where goods and services are bought and sold and jobs and money and stuff! Ben Bernanke said optimistic things about it today, albeit with a tragically ambiguous, stinging back: “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said today that the nation’s rate of economic contraction may be slowing and that he expects growth to resume later this year, but he also suggested that the economy could perform well below its potential for years to come.” What is this nonsense about the American economy having “potential”? Like building GREEN CARS and shit? [Washington Post]

Earlier we showed Barney Frank yelling at the goddamn Code Pink hippies on multiple occasions, but what else happened during this latest 94-hour grandstanding spectacle of a House Financial Services Committee hearing? Why the economy got saved, of course! Ha ha. (Kill us.) America’s C-SPAN watchers did, however, get to see such luminaries as Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Maxine Waters confuse and/or irritate the hell out of Geithner and Bernanke (mostly Geithner — he scowls!) Plus there was this crazy guy from Illinois whom Bernanke shot down during a rare burst of self-confidence. Hooray for Congress! Burn it! MORE »

Here’s your “Tuesday Lunch Video,” hooray! During today’s House Financial Services Committee hearings with archvillains Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, Barney Frank interrupted each of them to admonish the daring Code Pink protesters in the room, who came with their usual cardboard signs and cat calls and what not. He told them to “grow up” because they were NOT HELPING THE BANKS with this behavior. More importantly, the CNN chyron brings us a crucial “UPDATE” during this clip: “Meghan McCain: ‘I support the president.’” So she’s a communist now, too. [YouTube, Salon]

Keeping accord with weekly tradition, Wonkette channeled its insomnia at 4:30 a.m. this Monday morning to a week-old version of the New Yorker magazine, online, so as to scan for a “politics article.” There was a Ben Bernanke profile, which is EXACTLY what we asked our parents to get us for Christmas, at Best Buy. Jesus Christ, it is a long one though. Shorter than, say, Billy Budd, but easily twice as long as Bartleby. Anyway, Bernanke’s friends suck: “Bernanke was frustrated by the attacks on his policies, especially when they came from academics whose work he respected. If he moved slowly, people on Wall Street accused him of timidity. If he brought rates down sharply, academic economists accused him of going soft on inflation.” Aww shucks. [New Yorker]

Money-printing liquidity trapper Ben Bernanke has been a Local Loser in recent months after rapidly cutting the federal funds rate to negative 1,000% to no effect whatsoever, except national embarrassment. He’s had to print Master Paulson’s money, alone, every night, as punishment. He is not allowed to shave. But as Paulson and his flack Neel “Chump” Kashkari refuse to do anything right, Bernanke’s had enough and he’s just going to sing it from the rooftops of America! Today, in a big speech, he declared that the “government must step up efforts to prevent home foreclosures, with options including buying delinquent mortgages and providing bigger incentives for refinancing loans.” Meanwhile, back in their lair, Paulson and Kashkari are discussing what evil they must next bring to the global economy. MORE »

Whoa hey… whoa… what the hell? “The United States government unveiled $800 billion worth of new loans and debt purchases on Tuesday, hoping another massive infusion of cash would smooth troubled credit markets and make borrowing easier for homebuyers, small businesses and students.” Ha ha, it’s like the original TARP, but for consumers and eggheads — and this time, to hell with the Congressional “funding approval”! It’s much easier for Hank Paulson to drag his ass to a podium some random Tuesday morning and just start stone cold announcin’ the motherfucker. MORE »

• WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?: Your Wonkette will now link you to a Huffington Post page that excerpts a New York Times article about the Recession possibly celebrating its first birthday now, according to math and economists. Rather than link directly to the New York Times article, we wanted to ask you, the reader, to figure out why the Huffington Post illustrated this story with an AP picture of a polar bear in a zoo staring at an enormous wooden advent candle. Is it… “bear market?” Ben Bernanke is a bear? Oh, ha!…?? In any event, happy birthday, you brutal cycle of deleveraging, you. [HuffPo]

While the economy continued to melt down over the weekend, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent a few hours hiding from his life at a Washington Nationals baseball game! Alas, he could not escape his horrible, horrible sadness: “Like at every other professional sporting event, a couple minutes is devoted to throwing out free t-shirts and Ben went after a free t-shirt last night like a man possessed. I have rarely seen such intensity in the eyes of a human being. …Yet, the look of agony upon Ben’s face when the t-shirt slipped through his finger tips struck me as odd.” It’s just one thing after another for this guy, right? [The Foodandbeermonger]

A week ago today, we bitterly presented the World’s Worst Wonk’d. The “D.C. celebrity sightings” consisted of George Will buying another fucking book at Borders, and a fireman who had once been on local teevee. We demanded that you people get it together, and you got it together! Huzzah for Wonkette Operatives! This week, Fred Thompson, Robert Mueller, Tom Ridge, Juan Williams, Marion Barry, Ben Bernanke, Ken Mehlman, Robert Novak, Dana Milbank, Mark Warner, and David Frum were all spotted being various degrees of famous at various places by our spies and operatives. The most voyeuristic fun ever in Wonkette’s Five Long Years of History, after the jump. MORE »