This is a brief but fascinating read. It's a description of how the day-to-day trading of stocks really works. It is almost all automated with very high speed and very specialized systems doing all the work and making all the decisions at the behest of Phd financial and computer types.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/-it-sounds-like-something.ars

I'm not sure I like the implications of this. It would seem to me that every nickel of any money to be made is squeezed out and could be working very much in favor of major Wall Street shops and leaving everyone else at a huge disadvantage. I have to wonder if this has anything to do with how poorly the 401k savings / investments of regular people has done in recent years.

Bernanke has got to be one of the most self-delusional men that ever lived.

In this interview with Jim Lehrer Bernanke states:

When Lehrer said some people think the Fed is the fourth branch of the government, Bernanke responded: "That's a tremendous exaggeration." He said the Fed's independence from political interference in setting interest rates to influence economic activity is crucial. "You get much better results" for the economy when this is the case, he said. "We're very, very sensitive to this issue."

Bernanke referring to the results in this way stands as one of the craziest things I have ever heard.

Here is the article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32160610/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/ 

Bernanke must be referring to the idea that those who are running things know what they are doing and that they aren't corrupt officials of a dysfunctional system. In the current instance the evidence suggests they don't have a clue and are corrupt as hell and have driven us into a ditch.