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Portfolio > Economy & Markets

Bernanke Is a ‘Counterfeit Money Printer’ and Should Resign: Faber

By John Sullivan

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Dr. Doom, also known as economist and author Marc Faber, had strong words on Friday for Ben Bernanke, calling for the Fed chairman to resign, saying he is a “counterfeit money printer” and that he “messed up the U.S. economy.”  

Faber, author of “The Gloom, Doom and Boom” report, came to fame after correctly calling the stock market collapse in 1987.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (Photo: AP)Speaking with CNBC, Faber said Bernanke (left) was “one of the main proponents of an ultra-expansionist economic monetary policy that was to blame for the latest financial crisis.”

“If I had messed up as badly as Bernanke I would for sure resign,” he told the network. “The mandate of the Fed to boost asset prices and thereby create wealth is ludicrous—it doesn’t work that way. It’s a temporary boost followed by a crash.”

“This unlimited QE (quantitative easing), buying mortgage-backed securities and continuing operation twist has the implication of simply having asset prices go up and the money flows down to the Mayfair economy,” Faber added.

As CNBC notes, a Mayfair economy is one which benefits the wealthier and better off in society. Faber said this latest round of QE would not help the “man on the street.”

“QE helps rich people whose asset prices go up and whose net worth then increases, but it doesn’t flow to the man on the street who is faced with higher costs of living with price rises,” he said. “You just have a small economy that is booming, but the majority of the economy is damaged by QE.”

The network says Faber “poured scorn” on the notion that QE helps the economy, declaring that supporters of the policy would have said the same in 2001 when low interest rates led to a housing bubble in the United States. That, in turn, led to the financial crisis of 2008.

“If we have an economic crisis in the Western world, it’s because the government makes up 50% or more of the economy,” he said. “This is a cancer that is taking away people’s freedom.”

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