When evaluating the performance of Ben Bernanke during his disastrous tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve, it's ultimately very simple: according to Alan Greenspan, “Helicopter” Ben is a liar.

Regular readers will recall that Greenspan essentially discredited himself and Bernanke with some remarks he made a couple of months ago, during another of his over-paid speaking tours (see “Greenspan: Spotting a Bubble is Easy”). There is nothing controversial about this remark. Spotting economic “bubbles” is easy – especially large ones.

U.S. home prices roughly tripled in a little over a decade, while real wages for most Americans were falling. This made the U.S. housing sector a text-book case of an economic bubble. There was absolutely zero possibility that these enormous price-gains (achieved through a speculator-frenzy) could ever be sustained.

While virtually the entire mainstream economic community was “surprised” when the largest bubble in global history burst (along with ALL of the media-parrots), precious metals commentators, and a tiny handful of other analysts were not surprised – since these were people who actually think for themselves.

Yet, when the bubble was at its absolute peak, the first prediction from “Helicopter” Ben was that the U.S. was in a “Goldilocks economy” where markets and house prices would simply keep going up forever. At this point, anyone with the slightest grip on reality should have immediately tuned-out Bernanke.

Even after the U.S. housing sector was clearly in a serious decline, Bernanke promised the world a “soft landing” for the U.S. economy – that the bursting of the largest asset-bubble in human history would essentially do no damage to the U.S. economy. According to Alan Greenspan (and the precious metals community), there is no possible way that Bernanke could have believed his own “predictions” (i.e. he was lying).

However, for just one hypothetical moment, let's assume that Bernanke was being honest – and actually did believe his own nonsense. This was a man who openly boasted for years that he was the world's foremost scholar on the “Great Depression” (and the huge asset-bubble which preceded it). For a man who made this the focal point of year's of academic studies, and still totally missed spotting the U.S. housing bubble, this is an unbelievable display of incompetence.

Therefore, the only way to defend Bernanke against the accusation that he is a compulsive liar is to argue that he was actually the most-incompetent head of a central bank in history. To put this into context, the Obama regime has now openly said it is in favor of expanding the powers of the Federal Reserve by making it the official “watchdog” of systemic risk. This is equivalent to giving a security guard at a bank a promotion, after that same “guard” had fallen asleep during a bank-robbery.

Of equal outrage, Obama himself patted Bernanke on the back by saying he had “done a fine job”. Is this the “report card” we should expect for a man who is obviously either a compulsive liar or a total buffoon?

In fact, as Bernanke's term as Fed chairman nears its end, the “spin” from the U.S. propaganda-machine, and the hints from the Obama regime all strongly suggest that Bernanke will be reappointed for a second term. This is yet another indication that Obama himself is simply a Wall Street puppet.

From Wall Street's perspective, Bernanke did a great job – as the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil “monkey” who sat back and didn't see, hear or say anything while the U.S. financial crime syndicate perpetrated a multi-trillion dollar Ponzi-scheme (based on the U.S. housing bubble). According to a former, senior U.S. banking regulator – William Black – Bernanke was a knowing accomplice to this fraud (see “U.S. bank-fraud SYSTEMIC and INTENTIONAL – William Black”), as was the U.S. government, itself.

Thus, reappointing Ben Bernanke as the chairman of the Federal Reserve would not have anything to do with protecting the U.S. from “systemic risk” (i.e. the scams and reckless gambling of Wall Street), but the exact opposite. A second-term for Bernanke would be confirmation that the Obama regime is prepared to let Wall Street embark on yet another crime-wave – as soon as Tim-the-tax-cheat Geithner has stuffed enough trillions into their vaults to make them solvent.

There is no possible way that Bernanke's reappointment could be justified. Thus, when it happens it will demonstrate in the clearest terms that the Obama regime is a government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers.

For all the gold-bugs who saw the U.S. economic meltdown approaching, and saw Wall Street's “front-man” Ben Bernanke providing cover for the banksters with his absurd “predictions”, the message is clear: keep buying precious metals - because things can only get worse.

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