Uncle Bent is determined to crater the economy and the housing market by recklessly overtightening. His inflation target is unrealistic, given our wartime economy. It is time for a pause in rate hikes, given their delayed effects. Benny-boy is playing with fire, and the world is getting burned.

JUST CAME BACK FROM THREE WEEKS IN CHINA. GUESS WHAT? TALK OF SWITCHING FROM THE DOLLAR TO THE EURO. INTEREST RATES HAVE TO GO UP OR ELSE.

not exactly a friend of the scarcely tested Mr. Bernanke, but the market's (and yesterday's bloggers)hysterical reaction to his comments is way over the top, and emblematic of the mood of the market for months now. Whoever quoted Bambi's mother has it right-- instead of a bull or bear market, we're in a white-tailed deer market, characterized by nervousness and the reckoning power of an animal that's never had to stalk anything more cunning than grass; it's either "feed with the herd" or "dump and run".
I thought investing in the stock market was about evaluating companies and their ability to prosper over the long term. If you think the prevailing cost of borrowing money controls it, why not buy bonds? Or if it's oil, invest in commodities instead? If the latest selloff has driven the flighty, stupid and forgetful "investors" out of the mix for a while, this will be a good thing.

Mr. Bernanke and his position as Fed Chairman no longer controls interest rates or the rate of inflation. China, India, and Japan are the impetus behind commodity inflation and their demand for higher treasury interest rates to offset a falling dollar. We are presently seeing redemptions not rollovers for our treasuries. Guess how we fund these redemptions--you got it we PRINT MONEY. Buckle you seat belts as higher interest rates and higher inflation rates are coming to a house on your street. Les

Mr. Bernanke and his position as Fed Chairman no longer controls interest rates or the rate of inflation. China, India, and Japan are the impetus behind commodity inflation and their demand for higher treasury interest rates to offset a falling dollar. We are presently seeing redemptions not rollovers for our treasuries. Guess how we fund these redemptions--you got it we PRINT MONEY. Buckle you seat belts as higher interest rates and higher inflation rates are coming to a house on your street. Les

I agree with Mike Maginnis that keeping foreign holders of dollars to keep them is a major concern. I also think there is too much focus on Bernanke and not enough on the deficit spending, reckless Administration and its Congressional followers. Greenspan let Bush run amok and now Bernanke is taking the heat because of it. Remember Volcker. Not a very popular guy, but he got inflation under control and the economy back on track. It hurts but its got to be done.

Raising interest rates to keep foreigners from sheddings is a major concern of the Fed. Rather than focus on Bernanke, more attention needs to be given to the reckless behavior of this Administration and its deficit spending. Part of the blame for weakness also has to fall on Greenspan, who was unwilling to condemn the reckless tax cuts and deficit spending and cut interest rates to the point where an overheated housing market had no where to go but down.

I fully understand the economic equation for the Fed's inflation model. The problem is that the Feds do not wait long enough for the economy to react. Soon the foreclosures will hit the banks, the market will go sour and we are back to lowering interest rates to inspire the market. Leave the economy alone for awhile. STOP THE RATE HIKES.

It's very difficult for me to understand how, in a credit-bound economy, raising the cost of everything bought on credit can reduce inflation.
It's also puzzling how increasing the cost of financing a business will cause that business to maintain or decrease its prices. They must either raise their prices or go out of business.
The former would increase inflation, the later would have essentially no effect.
Someone with a little clout needs to challenge the peculiar logic that sends multi-billions down the drain in the stock market while trying to control inflation which, in a free economy, is perfectly capable of controlling itself.

Thank God it didn't go below 11,000 !

Thank you to the one gentleman who noted that a free economy is perfectly capable of regulating inflation itself. There are so many choices for consumers today that if something is too expensive, you can buy another brand. Anyone? Why are monopolies against the law? We, the consumers, will regulate inflation by the choices we make. We aren't in control of oil prices.

Speaking of oil, it's way past time to quit our reliance of foreign oil, even if it means we pay more. For those of you who don't do your own research, there are hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in oil shale in this country. The estimated costs of extracting a barrel of oil from oil shale was estimated at between $50 and $70 a barrel. Not only are we already paying that, if we were extracting that oil, we wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of oil spills in the ocean (give those morons at Greenpeace a break), we could thumb our noses at Venezuela and Iran. Actually, we could thumb our noses at everyone. We would need to resign ourselves to permanently paying higher prices because I guarantee that if we stopped importing oil, the price of oil would tumble very quickly. Canada has hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in oil sands. Much cheaper to get a barrel of oil from the sands. I don't remember the high figure, but the lower figure was around $30 a barrel. Anyone care to take a stab in the dark why the oil companies aren't funding those endeavors?