Wonkette

Oh, so our president is giving a press conference, talkin’ about the economies and offshore drilling and such? It’s a slowish news day, so we might as well liveblog this dealy. Fix yourself a triple Wonkettini and join us after the jump for whatever jokes we can muster about the limp Dow, and smacking Fannie into a state of renewed arousal. MORE »

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]

ECONOMY MADE PERFECTER: What is wrong with the Federal Reserve?! Today they cut the fed funds rate another .25%, bringing it down to 2%. Don’t they know that we have already achieved perfection and our economy is growing licketysplit? Meh, whatever. Let’s run with it and REFI REFI REFI! [NYT]

Today the Bush administration offered its brave response to the current financial crisis, as delivered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The administration has faced overwhelming pressure to give the government more oversight and regulation within the financial markets, since every major player (investment banks, hedge funds) keeps dying and then asks the government for money. And who better to ramp up regulation on investment banks than Henry Paulson, the former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs! So what’s in his funny new oversight package, and how will it not do anything save the economy again? MORE »

The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate — its “big deal” interest rate — by another 3/4 of a percentage point this afternoon, bringing the number down to 2.25%. This is the second 3/4-point cut in recent months, meaning Ben Bernanke is probably on speed since that is a lot to cut. MORE »

This weekend, as our frozen credit markets and subprime space aliens took investment bank Bear Stearns — the fifth largest in the country — down, down, down into the ground, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan wrote an article that saved the American economy. Hurrah! Regarding the moral hazard of huge companies taking inappropriate risks because the Fed will rescue their broke asses when it hits the fan (”they’re too big to fall!”), kindly old hobbit-sage Alan Greenspan offers these soothing words: who knew!? MORE »

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke testified about our flourishing American economy to Congress again today, and the economy’s just not good at all! He signaled more rate cuts would come to stave off the growing credit crisis, but balanced it with fears of inflation. As the Federal Reserve noted in its semi-annual policy report today, it foresees “a negative combination of below-trend growth and inflation rates topping 2% this year, though conditions are expected to start improving in 2009.” So we’ll have horrible stagflation for all of 2008, but Ben Bernanke will make 2009 wondrous! MORE »

It’s too late for this year, but maybe next Valentine’s Day you can give your favorite Libertarian a sweet treat that’s also a kick in the nuts to the ILLEGAL UNCONSTITUTIONAL “FEDERAL” RESERVE. Start stockpiling now! [RonPaulChocolate.com] MORE »

BERNANKE SUGGESTS FED MIGHT KEEP LOWERING A KEY INTEREST RATE: Continued housing and credit crises blamed for sluggish economy. Happy Valentine’s Day, we are all doomed! [AP]

The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate — “the” rate — by half of a percentage point today to 3%, a week after they freaked out and cut it by three-quarters of a point. Ben Bernanke and his minions indicated there may be more rate cuts on the way, too. Hooray! Eventually they can get that bitch down to 1%, then we can all buy mansions with $5 down payments and deal with the damn adjustable interest later. Because we’re all getting mansions! [AP/Breitbart]

This recession scare, it’s real. Too real! The Federal Reserve, much to Ron Paul’s dismay, lowered the fed funds rate by 3/4 of a percentage point today to stave off a, hrm, bank panic of neo-Victorian proportion! MORE »

Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr.’s stand for economic justice and his resulting assassination which provided U.S. markets with a holiday from the global economic collapse, Wall Street didn’t get hit again until this morning. And by “Wall Street,” we mean your 401k, 403b, IRA, access to basic business or consumer credit, income, value of your house, and value of your young children’s labor (selling apples down on Main Street by the Starbucks soup kitchen). But don’t worry, because Ben Bernanke and his Federal Reserve superheroes just did an emergency interest rate cut. Head over to the PayDay Loan joint and pick up a case of Cristal! MORE »

Notorious CNBC host Jim Cramer, one of the prime suspects on our Aspberger’s Watch, welcomed Ron Paul to his Mad Money program on Friday, and the two proceeded to play tummysticks on the subject of abolishing the Federal Reserve. Cramer’s hatred of the central bank became YouTuberously famous in August when he ranted about how all his poor i-banker friends were watching their profit margins narrow as the Fed wasn’t acting on the mortgage crisis. So despite the Fed’s smooth resolve in staving off recession during various South Asian financial crises and Russian debt defaults in the mid- to late-90s — flushes of liquidity that allowed Cramer to accrue a $50+ million fortune as a hedge fund manager — he wants to get rid of it. Ron Paul can have him. [Mad Money]

It was like the Berlin Air Lift, but we sent planeloads of money instead of food. And it went to Iraq, where it all vanished. And the three massive cash shipments (in December 2003 and June 2004) were the largest transfers of cash money in the history of the U.S. Federal Reserve — some 363 tons of American dollars were stacked on wooden pallets and forklifted into cargo planes. The mafia could only dream of this shit! MORE »