FDL Contributor Bill Black scorched everyone with his testimony on the failure of Lehman Brothers when he testified before the House Financial Services Committee today.

The Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke, intends to fight to preserve the bureaucratic power of the Fed. We know the Fed failed to exercise its responsibilities before the Great Crash, to the detriment of everyone in society, except the financial elites. He should count himself lucky to have a job.

The Fed is statutorily obligated to manage monetary policy for maximum employment consistent with stable prices. Bernanke has done nothing to meet the employment part of the Fed’s obligations. There are people who will.

Sen. Harry Reid made a Friday evening announcement that he would support Bernanke, hoping to head off further erosion in Bernanke’s support. But it may not be enough.

Harry Reid stands boldly behind Ben Bernanke’s nomination to continue as Fed Chair, with a statement of support issued by his office late on a Friday afternoon. Yeah, that’s a real ringing endorsement. Meanwhile, the FDIC keeps eating banks and the unemployment in NV continues to grow.

If Obama/Rahm want to triangulate against progressives (and they do), they’re not the only ones who can make cause with people on the other side of the aisle. If that’s what it takes to shake up the corporate domination if our political system, we’ve done it before and we can do it again. Because working within the traditional political order to support “progressives” whose conviction lasts only as long as it doesn’t matter just doesn’t seem to be working.

Back in May, Marcy Wheeler met with Chris Dodd and I asked him if he knew, as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which banks the Fed was lending to. He said he’d find out and get back to me. He finally did. He asks the Fed why he shouldn’t know these things, and then sent me their response. The letter is below the fold.

In the video posted here, current Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke is applying for his own damned job; the confirmation hearing is a interview with his prospective employer’s management representative team.

And he’s basically telling the team he is too stupid for the job – just fire him now.

The worst is the folks at the Fed clearly believe the bogus stress tests were a meaningful exercise. That alone should disqualify them from getting a bigger role in bank supervision. And if you read their pronouncements, they plan to continue to use them, and have the process run by….a monetary economist! Help me! Bernanke also conveniently ignores the fact that the rally might also have a wee bit to do with the fact that he threw a bit over $1 trillion at the markets, as announced in mid-March.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The Fed seems to believe its own PR.

The Fed can’t bail out the economy this time. Meanwhile it’s privatize the Profits, socialize the losses time.