Ben Bernanke Confessing to Oprah of the Years of Performance-Enhancing Economic Doping

The Oprah Winfrey Interview we should have seen:

Ben Bernanke Confessing to Years of Performance-Enhancing Economic Doping.

Press Conference with Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Ben Bernanke

Press Conference with Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Ben Bernanke

Valukas Report On The Lehman Brothers Collapse

Lehman Brothers is back in the news in a big way after the report on the reasons for the investment bank's collapse in September 2008 submitted by Anton R. Valukas, the examiner appointed by the  US Bankruptcy Trustee, was released the other day. According to this website, the 2,200-page report took one year to prepare by a team of 70+ contract attorneys and cost $38 million.

There are quick summaries and detailed commentaries available from numerous financial news sites and blogs, if you don't particularly enjoy wading through a mean 9-volume report. Neither do I, but there's something about poring over the raw report and forming my own opinion therefrom that I find challenging, so I've started reading the Valukas report. I'll probably write something about my own take on this matter in a later post.

Now, for those of you who'd like to get a flavor of the original report, too, I've embedded below for your convenience the complete 9-volume report on Lehman Brothers' collapse which I found at Scribd.com. Here's a guide to the contents of each volume, to give you an overview of the report's coverage and help those who may want to skip sections and read selectively:

Volume 1- Sections I and II: Introduction, Executive Summary and Procedural Background 
               - Section III.A.1: Risk
Volume 2- Section III.A.2: Valuation
               - Section III.A.3: Survival
Volume 3- Section III.A.4: Repo 105
Volume 4- Section III.A.5: Secured Lenders
               - Section III.A.6: Government
Volume 5- Section III.B: Avoidance Actions
               - Section III.C: Barclays Transaction
Volume 6- Appendix 1
Volume 7- Appendices 2 - 7
Volume 8- Appendices 8 - 22
Volume 9- Appendices 23 - 34
Lehman Brothers Examiners Report COMBINED

Bernanke: Far too Early to Call Victory in Recovery

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday it is too soon to declare victory in the U.S. economic recovery, warning against complacency in policy making as the outlook brightens.
"We haven't quite yet got to the point where we can be completely confident that we're on a track to full recovery," Bernanke told ABC News in a rare on-the-record interview.

The Fed chairman welcomed a decline in the unemployment rate and signs financial strains in debt-stricken Europe were easing. But he said joblessness was still at a troubling high and housing markets still weak.
"I think it's really important not to be complacent. We have a long way to go, a lot of work to do, and we're going to keep doing that."

Asked whether the Fed was considering further action to stimulate growth, Bernanke said the central bank would take no options off the table. However, he did not suggest a further round of bond buying was imminent.

The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since December 2008 and has bought $2.3 trillion of debt through two bond-purchasing programs to stimulate growth.
In a speech on Monday, Bernanke said the U.S. economy would need to grow more quickly to ensure continued progress in reducing the jobless rate. Those comments drove stock prices higher as investors bet a further round of monetary stimulus might be planned.

Stocks rose Monday on optimism Bernanke's remarks signaled the Fed will do more to lower borrowing costs. Traders pushed out bets for a first Fed rate hike to October 2013, from July 2013 just a week earlier.
The U.S. unemployment rate has dropped from 9.1 percent in August to 8.3 percent last month, a decline Fed officials see as out of step with a still-sluggish pace of growth.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher, a monetary policy hawk, on Tuesday agreed that faster growth is needed to boost jobs, although he made clear he is opposed to a further easing of monetary policy.

Eric Rosengren, a policy dove who leads the Boston Fed, said the central bank should ease further if growth slows more than expected. Neither official has a vote this year on the Fed's policy panel.
Another official who is supportive of loose monetary policies, New York Fed President William Dudley, told a congressional panel financial strains in Europe have eased although the Fed continues to monitor the situation carefully.

After its last two meetings, the Fed said it would likely keep overnight borrowing costs near zero at least through late 2014. Bernanke said that was the central bank's best estimate, not a guarantee.

A quickened pace of job creation - the economy has created more than 200,000 jobs in each of the last three months - has fueled speculation the central bank might raise rates sooner.
In both his speech on Monday and the interview on Tuesday, Bernanke appeared to be pushing back against those expectations.

"It's far too early to declare victory," Bernanke told ABC News. "We need to be cautious and make sure this is sustainable."

One drag on growth is likely to come from gasoline prices that have drifted higher on geopolitical worries, Bernanke said.

"That will be a hit on growth," he said. "But at this level ... we don't think it's going to be anything that's going to stall the recovery."

Rising fuel costs are shaping up as one of the biggest issues in the 2012 presidential campaign, as U.S. gasoline prices have jumped about $0.30 per gallon to just over $3.90 within the past month.
Bernanke's ABC News appearance marks the third time the Fed chairman has given an extensive on-the-record, on-camera interview. It was part of a barrage of recent public exposure that has included a profile in a national magazine and a series of college lectures on the Fed and the recent financial crisis.

Bernanke's stepped-up visibility, on top of the launch of news conferences four times a year, appears aimed at counter-balancing some of the harsh criticism leveled at the Fed by Republican presidential candidates. Critics say the Fed's policies have weakened the dollar, hurt savers, and are likely to generate inflation.


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Peter Schiff on Fox Business - Possibility of QE3 6-22-11

Schiff contends QE3 will happen, though Bernanke will call it something else.

Q3 is all but certain, and also going to fail too... Peter Schiff.