WASHINGTON (AP)-Outgoing Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was interred with full honors in a special mausoleum on the grounds of the Federal Reserve here on Wednesday.
"Al was a great chairman, even if he did give us nothing but investment bubbles and a legacy of debt that is about to come crashing down onto our ears," said the new Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke at the emotional ceremony. He passed around newly printed dollar bills that featured Greenspan's grinning face to honor the man.
Bernanke then officially threw the key to the burial crypt into the Potomac River to ensure that the burial place will remain undisturbed, and that nothing can get in or out of it.
"Now," Bernanke said, "I face an impossible task, since my Fed is between a rock and a hard place in trying to keep the economy going."
"Al engineered low interest rates to keep financial markets and the housing bubble afloat," noted Bernanke. "So now, the raising of interest rates to prop up the collapsing US dollar and to forestall runaway inflation is also destroying the housing bubble and consumer spending."
He complained, "If I raise interest rates further to support the dollar, housing will totally collapse along with the economy, the stock market, bonds and the derivatives pyramid, and then we'll have a deflationary depression. So that SOB left me with no option but to print trillions of more dollars in order to hyperinflate our way out of this mess in this debt-ridden and maladjusted economy. Gold and silver are already going crazy as hyperinflation gets going."
"Borrowers are already walking away from their houses that they can't afford and their real restate values are plunging by $200,000 and more. Delinquency rates are at record levels. In addition, no first-time buyers can afford to buy a home," he continued.
The increases in mortgage rates have halted refinancing of mortgages which have kept the economy and retail sales afloat these past few years, and recession looms. More than $900 billion in equity has been withdrawn annually in the US for that purpose.
"Thus, I am so concerned about this mess that I am flooding the economy with almost limitless liquidity. They don't call me ‘Helicopter Ben Bernanke' for nothing," he said proudly. "There is a crisis of historic proportions coming, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is making sure that there is enough liquidity in place to put off the day of reckoning for maybe a year until I can resign and retire to Tahiti or someplace far, far away. I know what is about to happen and I just want to get the hell out. This will all end in tears in a deflationary collapse."
As the crowd dispersed, a pounding could be heard from the mausoleum and someone faintly shouting, "Let me out, goddamn you Ben!"
Bernanke then philosophically muttered that maybe he should have waited until the former chairman had expired before interring him.
