US Debt And Bernanke Debt, On The Same Track

URL and to post comments: http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/10/9/ben-bernanke-is-addicted-to-debt-and-gambling-and-he-needs-h.html Thursday,October 09, 2014 “I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful . . ." - Ben Bernanke Ben Bernanke is addicted to a drug called credit and he can't get enough.  Former Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke disclosed this month that he was turned down when he tried to refinance his home. I had to double-check to make sure I was not reading The Onion. I was not. It was Bloomberg. Bloomberg News reported that Bernanke, speaking to a crowd in Chicago, revealed, "I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so." After the audienced laughed, Bernanke responded: “I’m not making that up.” “I think it’s entirely possible” that lenders “may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said. As head of the central banking mafia's Federal Reserve System, Bernanke was publicly paid $199,750 per year and earned $250,000 in March for his first public speaking engagement since stepping down in January. Bernanke also apparently received $1 million to write his memoirs. Bernanke has a $672,000 mortage on a three bedroom townhouse he owns near Capitol Hill, a mortgage he has refinanced two times, most recently last September.  He and his wife bought it for $839,000 in 2004.  That means that after ten years Bernanke managed to pay down 24% of the total mortgage amount... meaning, if he kept up that pace, not including compound interest, it would take him more than forty years to pay off his house. Ben is now 60 years old and he wants another 30 years to pay it off!  That means he is hoping to pay it off by the time he is 90.  It's almost no wonder he got declined! The failure to refinance his mortgage is just one part of the Bernanke family's problem with debt, as he recently testified to Congress that his son, who is in medical school in New York, will likely rack up $400,000 worth of student loan debt to get his degree.  It appears he has enough money to pay off the mortgage given his book income and speaking fees (although after tax it may not be enough) and Ben may be just taking advantage of the tax deduction on mortgage payments as well as using his free cash to gamble in a stock market that is a pin prick away from a massive collapse. If that is in fact the case, and the market does collapse by 30-50% (as many like Jim Rickards are expecting), then Ben Bernanke will be wiped out.  Which would be rather appropriate as so would tens or hundreds of millions of others! So, in that respect you do have to give credit (no pun intended) to Ben.  He is walking the talk.  He believes everyone should go into massive debt and speculate in things like the wildly overvalued stock market and he is doing it himself.  As we've said before, Keynesianism is a form of brain damage and Ben appears to have profound Keynesianism dementia. He seems to believe that there should never be a limit to how much debt one should have.  "I think it would be a good thing if we didn't have it," Bernanke once said of the debt ceiling.  His policies at the Fed have caused a large amount of the US public to follow in his footsteps, unfortunately. Overall borrowing by the US consumer rose $13.5 billion in August following a revised $21.6 billion increase in July, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday. The rise has pushed total consumer debt to a record level of $3.25 trillion. Contrast Bernanke's and the American public's position with that of Ron Paul, whose net worth was calculated at between $2.1 million and $5.2 million in 2012 and has no debt that we can find. The former Texas Congressmen has stakes in companies like Barrick Gold Corp, Newmont Mining Corp and Pan American Silver corp. He has done very well over the years. Paul started investing in the gold sector in the 1970's!  The former congressman's portfolio looks much more like our portfolio in the TDV Newsletter than Bernanke's portfolio of debt. Knowing that helps me sleep at night.  And so, maybe it was a good thing Ben was turned down for yet another refi of his mortgage. He is a man suffering from the plague of two addictions. His addiction to debt which fuels his addiction to gambling. Hopefully one day soon he makes that call to deal with his problems.  Unfortunately, the problems he has created for everyone else in the US by creating easy money and the ability for the US government to go into massive debt will not be so easily fixed.  There is no hotline or remedy for that except what we prescribe here and to get into precious metals and expatriate as much of your wealth (and self) outside of the blast zone of the US as possible. When this debt-fueled gambling spree ends it will end in tears for all except those who prepared themselves for it and protected their wealth and self from its inevitable collapse. Comments? Join us at TDV!

Anarcho-Capitalist.  Libertarian.  Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.  Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast.