Bloomberg is reporting Fed's Fisher Says Bank Rescue Plan Would Worsen Fiscal 'Chasm'

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said the proposed $700 billion rescue of financial institutions backed by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke would plunge the U.S. government deeper into a fiscal abyss.

The plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to buy troubled assets from financial institutions would put "one more straw on the back of the frightfully encumbered camel that is the federal government ledger," Fisher said today in the text of a speech in New York. "We are deeply submerged in a vast fiscal chasm."

Fisher made the comments as the central bank expands its role in the biggest government intrusion into markets since the New Deal, with Bernanke trying to persuade Congress to approve Paulson's bailout plan.

Bernanke has already cut the benchmark interest rate at the most aggressive pace in two decades, invoked emergency powers to loan to securities firms and pumped billions of dollars into banks to try to restore liquidity. Also, the central bank loaned $85 billion this month to American International Group Inc.

"The seizures and convulsions we have experienced in the debt and equity markets have been the consequences of a sustained orgy of excess and reckless behavior, not a too-tight monetary policy," Fisher said to the New York University Money Marketeers Club.

"I was, and I remain skeptical, that lowering the fed funds rate is the most effective antidote," he said. "Rates held too low, too long during the previous Fed regime were an accomplice to that reckless behavior."

Kiss Bernanke Goodbye

Bernanke day's are now numbered. Goodbye and good riddance.
Kiss the Paulson plan goodbye too. It is now dead on arrival.