According to Bloomberg, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have pledged “to keep the main interest rate near zero for an “extended period” and confirmed that emergency measures to prop up the housing market will end as planned this month.”

So Peter Schiff is running against Chris Dodd for Senator in Connecticut. If the decision wasn’t obvious enough already, this video should drive the point home:

In principle, they could just help them out, but “in principle” is usually a hypothetical possibility that will never come to pass. In reality, this would create a very disturbing conflict of interest. After all, Thomas Jefferson also said, “No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, no one ever will.” If newspapers rely on the government for financial support, will they be willing to critically scrutinize government? Wouldn’t that be biting the hand that feeds you? It would seem to me that the government could easily use that financial assistance as a cudgel. It would also seem to me that newspapers are a bit archaic, the Internet is the wave of the future.

Here we see Lawrence O’Donnell in all his political hackishness glory, as he interviews/debates/interrupts/yells at Peter Schiff regarding healthcare reform (one wonders how he would treat Chris Dodd, the Senator Peter Schiff is considering challenging; after all, Chris Dodd was a key player in causing the housing crisis). The maker of the YouTube channel, “How the World Works” (who runs a very informative channel), times how long both talk in this “interview.” You would expect the person being interviewed (Schiff) to talk longer, but then again, you could only expect that if the “interviewer” wasn’t a political hack.

Inflation was thus misinterpreted as wealth, leading American consumers to borrow more and more, especially against their overvalued homes. Total mortgage debt in the United States is now around 12.5 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion in 1980! Total household debt was around 50% of GDP in 1980 and is over 100% today. And the personal saving rate was around negative 1%, for most of the last decade.