Federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke continues to float his raft of economic strategies upon a wad of fake money. His song and dance has provided us with no real relief. Someone at some point must have convinced him that lowering interest rates is fun and exciting. He believed those lies and now it's his hobby. Has it provided any positive benefit of any real consequence in terms of the long term picture? I think not.

Today and tomorrow, the Federal Reserve Chairman shall be addressing congress. He's expected to tell them about how he has our economy under control. The fact is that it's near completely out of his hands. The one possible exception is that he's handily turned our dollars into wads of toilet paper. His major concern seems to be avoiding recession, which is an admirable goal, but someone forgot to wake the dear man to tell him recession is already here, aided by the fake dollars Bernanke keeps spewing upon the ground.

The current president has done at least one good thing -- appointing Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair. Bernanke has so far managed to keep the economy from plunging in response to the decline in the housing market and high oil prices. But what really intrigues me is his speech in Omaha yesterday in which he politely bashed Bush's economic policies.

I say politely because Bernanke didn't actually criticize Bush's tax and industrial policies that since 2001 have led directly to the income inequality which Bernanke enumerated in his speech. According to Bloomberg, Bernanke avoided talking about the income growth of the top 1% -- focusing instead on the lower economic level where the disparities are still bad. He noted that families earning more than $103,100 grabbed 48.1% of aggregate income rise in 2005, from 46.5% in 1995 while those earning between $45,000 and $68,300 lost ground -- with their share dropping from 15.8% to 15.3% during the same period.

Bernanke also put his oar in the water on executive pay, noting research that says the economic value of skilled leadership has increased as firms have grown larger. He cited my beloved -- and pain-inducing -- Boston Red Sox to illustrate the income disparity between star athletes and others, citing the 2004 $22.5 million pay package for Manny Ramirez. At the same time, he noted research that points to weak corporate governance as a source of high executive compensation.

How have Bush's policies contributed to the income inequality?