Watching Bernanke give his speech at Haaarrrrrrvvaaarrrdddd was sickening.

The "students" there could be better called parrots, as their comments about Bernanke were for all intents and purposes delivered on their knees.

"Learned from the 70s"? What a liar. Bernanke has learned exactly nothing.

The fact of the matter is that The Fed has intentionally ignored price inflation for the last several years, being complicit in intentionally shoving off as much of it as possible to other nations such as China and blowing bubble after bubble here to try to "entice" our import market to generate funds that those government's need to sterilize.

Now, the check is on the table for all this foolishness, including the mother of all bubbles, housing.

The simple fact of the matter is that among Americans there is no confidence in anything that Bernanke or the government say about Price Inflation and its trends. If you disagree, then show me how you can square the government's 4% CPI number and the public's expectation of more than 8% price inflation over the next 12 months.

Clearly, someone is wrong, and historically what we know is that the public usually understates inflation expectations!

Speaking of price inflation, you only think oil is expensive. If Saudi Arabia starts treating their oil as, well, their oil, it might get a lot more expensive. $10/gallon gas anyone?

There are more and more people coming around my view on the "Credit Crunch" - that is, it will be prolonged and have a nasty effect on the economy for much longer than is expected at present. Some recent converts said:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - A "credit recession" sparked by the U.S. housing market downturn and excesses in structured finance may last more than two years, and the financial sector will undergo "massive consolidation," leading Wall Street strategists said on Wednesday."

Uh huh..... gee, what have I been saying for a while?

Only one problem - we're still calling it "excesses". There were no excesses. What there was is massive, pervasive, outrageous fraud up and down the line. That's all it ever has been and all it is now.

We are nowhere near the end of this mess. How do I know? Essentially none of the fraud has been brought out in public, nobody has been prosecuted of substance as of yet, and we have not seen any perp walks in the major investment banks.

Until we do, we're nowhere near the end of this mess.

Who's next? Remember the monolines?

"Ambac Financial Group's new bond insurance business outlook is limited due to the potential rating downgrade by Moody's Investors Service, an Ambac executive said on Wednesday."

I'm grabbing the popcorn for this one.

Why? Because this is the 900lb Gorilla that everyone was worried about back in January, and with good reason. See, a downgrade in these insurers to "A" credit, for example, is going to force anyone with risk-adjusted reserve requirements to roughly double those cash reserves, and will also force others (like pension funds that are only able to hold "AAA" credit in that part of their portfolio) to sell.

We will soon find out if the money is there to back these increased reserve requirements. If not......

The ECB and BOE left their interest rates alone - no surprises there.

Continental is parking planes and firing 3,000 people, making them the second major airline to take this step over the last few days. Gee, oil north of $100 has an impact on an airline?

Clinton has finally decided to "suspend" her campaign and back Obama.

Suspend?

This is the same sort of nonsense that goes on in the rest of DC. What is this "suspend" garbage? You lost, your campaign is over. Period. There is no "suspend"; the correct word is "end" or "capitulate".

But see, we don't expect people to tell the truth in DC any more. The responses to my last Ticker and Ron Paul's idiocy with regards to him not wanting faxes is a prime example, but BOHICA with Clinton, because truly, here it comes again.

We get the political environment we deserve.