CHESSNOID

At this point, the poor decision making by the Federal Reserves Bernanke leading us down to the lowest rates are pointless.  The recession is in full swing and they don’t know what the heck to do.  They have thrown the hail Mary the wrong way and now our economy is struggling.

New York Times:

On Tuesday, policy makers are expected to lower their target for the overnight federal funds rate to 0.5 percent, a record low.

In itself, analysts said, the move will be anticlimactic. Because demand for interbank loans has been so low, the actual Fed rate has been close to zero for a month. The real change will be in how the Fed tries to fight the recession from here on.

After Tuesday, the Fed will have to resort to mostly untested tools for promoting growth, because it cannot reduce its benchmark interest rate below zero.

Its goal will be to drive down borrowing costs wherever credit markets remain paralyzed. But the approach is much more complicated than raising or lowering a single rate, and it could have unintended consequences.

Analysts say the current recession, which officially began a year ago, is all but certain to break the postwar record for duration, 16 months. But it could also set a record for depth.

The economy has already lost two million jobs this year. Analysts predict that unemployment, now 6.5 percent, could hit 9 percent by the end of next year.

After all the rate cuts it has done, Bernanke is still trying to figure out why it isn’t working. He is an expert on the Great Depression and looks like he has steered the American economy like the Titanic into the Iceberg.

Seriously, they need to get more opinions other their own to get us back on track. There were many people who saw the recession coming when he, Bush, and Paulson were all still in denial. Now that it is here, they can’t even say the “R” word.

Will Obama and the new cabinet be able to do better. I hope so, but all we can do is wait.