Ben Bernanke, Savior of the US Economy?

With a keenly awaited speech scheduled to be made today in Jackson Hole, press reports indicate that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is the best hope for turning our economy around.

"When Ben Bernanke addresses the annual symposium of central bankers in Jackson Hole tomorrow he does so against arguably the most challenging backdrop in his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman.

At the end of a week of gloomy reports, Bernanke faces mounting expectations from markets that the Fed will step in to prop up the US's faltering economic recovery. News of stalling business activity and dismal home sales have fanned talk of a double-dip recession at a time when all the easy options have run out. At the same time, divisions appear to be emerging among his committee of policymakers.

Bernanke's speech at the Wyoming symposium, entitled The Economic Outlook and the Federal Reserve's Policy Response, will be scoured for any signs that he will live up to his nickname of "helicopter Ben" and scatter more money over the faltering US economy.

Following a slew of downbeat economic indicators, market expectations are growing that there will be more quantitative easing from the Fed before the end of the year. Under the radical scheme, also used in the UK last year, central banks pour money into buying assets such as government bonds from banks and the commercial sector, pumping more cash into the financial system and at the same time cutting market rates."

Those that are looking to the Fed to somehow end our current economic recession are delusional. A strong case can be made that the actions of the Fed in particular are what led to the recession in the first place. Asking them to not just continue their harmful practices, but to increase the amounts and intensity is tantamount to asking them to send the economy into an outright depression.

As Ron Paul has long argued, the Federal Reserve should be dissolved.

Its actions, including setting interest rates for interbank lending and buying and selling US Treasury securities, are best handled by the free market, by accountable employees of the US government, or not done at all.

In fact, a functioning Federal Reserve is certainly not a requirement for a healthy economy, but rather a symptom of the government's plot to undermine our currency with inflation.

Contrary to the media's suggestions, in order to get the economy back on track, Americans need to take our country back from politicians who would tax and spend us to death. And we need to take the country back from those who elect these same corrupt, power-loving politicians in the first place.

Ridding ourselves of the government's tax and spend mentality would put money back in the hands of those who earned it in the first place, which would enable them to invest it which will create new jobs and a healthy, growing economy.