While I am not smart enough to understand every little thing the federal reserve chairman says at these regular congressional hearings, I do know that both Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan seem to have done more to kill a robust US economy than to help it during their time at the US Federal Reserve. Back during the last few years of the Alan Greenspan lead US Federal Reserve, Chairman Greenspan seem to go out of his way to destroy the booming stock market of those days.

Of course, the reason given by Greenspan and others at the fed was becaue of the fear that the ever booming US economy was showing signs of inflation and no word in the English language is worst to a Member of the Federal Reserve than 'inflation'. It is not possible to know if Chairman Greenspan was right or not about his fears of growing inflations during the late 1990's and early 2000's because his actions as US Federal Reserve Chairman put the breaks on the ever increasing US stock market and when the terrible events of September 11th, 2001 occurred the very foundation of that bull market suffered huge cracks that are still visible today. In an effort to stop potential inflation, Chairman Greenspan continued to raise interest rates which had to be dropping too quickly after 911 - just to save the US economy from ruin.

Now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is in charge of the US Federal Reserve Bank and the jury is still out on how well he will do during these trying economic times. The US economy is prone to excesses and that is why a strong and vibrant US Federal Reserve is necessary in the US economy. Within the past decade, the US has faced a stock market that went up to quickly and shortly thereafter the same thing happened to the US real estate market. In modern times, the US business economy grows to excess much quicker than it did in the past. That means that the US Federal Reserve has a short time window to make a decision on whether or not current bull moves are either good or bad for long term financial growth.

Right now the US economy is facing more problems than just a potential recession later this year. Most of the price increases in the retail sector are being pushed up by higher fuel prices, like diesel, which is the primary fuel used by large trucks that bring retail products like food to market. Without some kind of leveling off of fuel prices, the US economy could go into a unique situation of prices at the retail level continuing to sore while demand drops significantly. This inverted supply and demand situation would cause havoc on the US economy and leave millions of Americans in a financial situation they might never recover from. While it is easy for commentators, like myself, to make angry accusations against the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, I would not want the pressure and the responsibility of that most important job.

Posted by Mark Hutcherson of Hutch Report