A lot of people take a lot of jabs at the current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and at his administration. It’s fairly understandable. The economic policy of the Fed, despite being a veritable market unto itself, has yielded a “frustratingly slow” recovery in the words of Ben Bernanke himself.
“Helicopter Ben,” as he is sometimes called in alternative media, is the nickname given to the Chairman of the Fed due to his inflationary policy of wanton money printing. All the stimulus programs we have seen, the Quantitative Easing programs, and the debt-monetization amounts to printing money. The Fed has proved it is willing and able to print money.
The image portrayed is one of Ben Bernanke, leaning out of the window of a helicopter and raining money down, which he could do ad infinitum as the Chairman of the Fed. This fits with his image as a moot academic with little to no business savvy or real world experience. In order to buy popularity and acceptance, he is printing money.
All of this may or may not be true. Politically speaking, hopefully the Chairman of the Federal Reserve knows what he’s doing and is fairly immune to attacks on his image. Economically speaking, however, the policy of the central bank is necessarily causing a lot of inflation in the cost of real goods.
Gold bullion is about as tangible of a commodity as you can get. It is, in essence, the most real good available on the market. Therefore, as “Helicopter Ben” continues to print money, and there are indications he is going to print more of it, the price of gold will continue to skyrocket.
Gold production and supply has changed little since the start of this crisis. But the value of the dollar, which is in question, has changed quite a bit and promises to change even more in the future. As the Fed continues printing money, and there is indication they must print more, the price of gold bullion will continue to gain as a real good in a sea of fake paper.
