[Hasso Hering] Ducking Responsibility Like Pro

Hering:

The old adage says that all economic news is bad news. This certainly proved true again earlier this week.

The price of oil and gasoline was soaring. The value of the dollar was sinking. And the chairman of the Federal Reserve said the Fed may again cut interest rates to banks because the economy showed signs of weakening.

It’s all connected. The price of gas is so high because of the rising price of imported oil. Oil keeps costing more in dollars because the dollar is worth less. The dollar is worth less because the Fed keeps lowering rates. The Fed lowers rates because the economy is slowing. It’s slowing because housing has slumped. And maybe housing slumped in part because gas costs so much more, driving up inflation.

No wonder some commentators have started worrying about a return of stagflation, barely remembered from the distant past, during the Ford and Carter administrations.

Somebody had better break the cycle before all of this gets out of hand. (hh)

Yup. Someone should do something.

Like, say, Bush?

What about Bush-appointed Fed Chair Ben Bernanke?

How about - be careful, this one's a doozy - Congress?

This is a shit editorial. There's really not a more polite way of saying that. The fact that it ignores something so obvious that its omission can only be intentional makes it rather pointless (why bring up the problem if you can't even point in the general direction of a solution?), and as a result, it's bad journalism. It's a waste of the reader's time.

If I were a journalism instructor, I would use this as an example of what not to do with all that valuable real estate on the editorial page.

Jeebus.