Ben Bernanke Reduced American Wealth By 14%

[Geee]

American Thinker:

With Ben Bernanke's chairmanship of The Federal Reserve set to expire at the end of January, it is prudent that we examine his seven years at the helm of America's central bank in order to see what lessons can be learned going forward. When Bernanke's legacy is objectively studied, it is clear that his chairmanship has been a mediocre one, even by the Fed's own standards.

The purpose of the Federal Reserve is outlined in the bank's dual mandate; to stabilize the value of the dollar, and to curtail unemployment. Although much attention has been paid to the latter of the mandates (and it is understandable why American's are aware of our stubbornly high unemployment numbers) there has been precious little focus on the Fed's initial mandate of stabilizing the value of the dollar. When it comes to maintaining the value of the dollar, the Bernanke Fed has had about as much success as in their efforts to lower unemployment to pre-recession levels.

Using the eye-opening tool available at usinflationcalculator.com, an individual can determine how significantly their savings have dwindled during Bernanke's time in office. Every dollar that you saved in 2006 has a purchasing power roughly 14% less today. If you had $1,000 in savings in 2006, you can now purchase the equivalent of approximately $860 worth of goods and services. It is also worth noting that a dollar in 2006 could purchase 1/603th of an ounce of gold, while a dollar today can only purchase 1/1236th of an ounce. As Forbes Opinions Editor John Tamny noted in a recent column, when examining "The value of the dollar in terms of the commodity historically used to define money thanks to its stability is fairly explicit that we have an inflation problem." Although history has seen higher periods of inflation, it is clear that the value of the dollar was far from stable during Bernanke's time as Fed Chairman.