Ben Bernanke
Week in Review: January 17-23, 2010
25/January/2010 11:51 Filed in: Week in
Review
Today begins this new column focusing on the events
of the last week, and their potential ramifications
on future developments. Whether this week in review
becomes weekly is probably dependent upon the weeks
themselves, well as outside forces directly related
to enterprise priorities. No matter how you choose
to view the stupendous changes of this week we must
agree there was a lot going on in the United States
and her close neighbors.
Last week began recovery in Haiti, where the shift took place from looking for buried survivors in the quake’s rubble, to attempting to recover the now dead and decaying bodies. The last estimate I heard stated that total deaths may approach 200,000. This week, while the recovery of bodies continues, the true survival situation is reaching critical mass. So far the Haitian people have been very well behaved as aid has been slow getting into the country and out to the people. Perhaps that peace was, and is just the shock of trying to mentally cope with these catastrophic events. For the foreseeable future, the extremely difficult job of just surviving date to day, amongst the destruction, disease, poverty, hunger, and thirst of just plain life will begin to take a physical and emotional toll. That is true both within the country's citizens as well as those trying to minister help.
On Tuesday Massachusetts elected Scott Brown its first Republican Senator to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy, which had been in the Kennedy family since 1952. Brown was the first Republican Senator elected in the Commonwealth since the 1970s. Scott Brown is a center right Republican with a constitutional governance philosophy much the same as the recently elected governors in New Jersey and Virginia . While this is hailed as a great Republican victory and the end of the filibuster proof Senate, in a way it further points to the fact that the establishments of both the Republicans and the Democrats represent fringe views of the majority of the American people, which will make for more very interesting times as the Congressional elections approach this fall.
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Last week began recovery in Haiti, where the shift took place from looking for buried survivors in the quake’s rubble, to attempting to recover the now dead and decaying bodies. The last estimate I heard stated that total deaths may approach 200,000. This week, while the recovery of bodies continues, the true survival situation is reaching critical mass. So far the Haitian people have been very well behaved as aid has been slow getting into the country and out to the people. Perhaps that peace was, and is just the shock of trying to mentally cope with these catastrophic events. For the foreseeable future, the extremely difficult job of just surviving date to day, amongst the destruction, disease, poverty, hunger, and thirst of just plain life will begin to take a physical and emotional toll. That is true both within the country's citizens as well as those trying to minister help.
On Tuesday Massachusetts elected Scott Brown its first Republican Senator to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy, which had been in the Kennedy family since 1952. Brown was the first Republican Senator elected in the Commonwealth since the 1970s. Scott Brown is a center right Republican with a constitutional governance philosophy much the same as the recently elected governors in New Jersey and Virginia . While this is hailed as a great Republican victory and the end of the filibuster proof Senate, in a way it further points to the fact that the establishments of both the Republicans and the Democrats represent fringe views of the majority of the American people, which will make for more very interesting times as the Congressional elections approach this fall.
Read More...