Poor Bernanke

Poor Bernanke! Yesterday I read a remark by him that money can't buy happiness in his speech to graduating students at South Carolina. "Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off," he said.

I googled and found that he earned only about US$200,000 in 2009. I read somewhere he had to sell his house at a loss to move to Washington when he took on the Fed Chairman role. His job requires him to meet with and regulate those sinfully paid bank CEOs who used to earn hundreds of million in bonuses. I guess he has to convince himself that money is not everything to check himself from being envious hahaha. One can not help but feel the injustice. Think about those speculators/dealers who are trying to make a killing by attacking the Eurodollar and the European bonds out of the current Greek crisis. They can probably earn ten times his annual salary in a day if they are successful; and what is their contribution? Further hardship on the poor in Greece. Pensioners in Greece who get about US$1250 per month will see their pension reduced by 20%. Likewise government servants will suffer pay cut too etc. Sometimes I wonder what does such excessive money mean to these speculators/dealer? Such people and those masters of universe who direct their creativity to devise intricate financial derivatives/structures and who produce nothing concrete or provide any useful service are well remunerated.

Hahaha I think I am becoming a socialist, an armchair one probably. I share the sentiment of one US blogger who commented about Bernanke's remark that money can't buy happiness. He said Bernanke "has probably never been poor before".