Ben Bernanke is back to his same-old same-old schtick. It's not our fault, he says, it's the fault of that damned global savings glut.

Don't believe me? Give this a read:

But the Fed chairman warned that the United States-led crisis was fueled in large part by huge inflows of cheap money to the United States from countries like China that were trying to recycle dollars from their huge trade surpluses.

Ask yourself is there anywhere in it where the article discusses the fact that Americans were simply living too far beyond their means? Sure, this comment kind of implies it, if you have a basic understanding of economics. But how many Americans know anything about economics? Too busy obsessing over ballon-boy or some such.

He's also trotting out deficit reduction as the solution to our ills and at the same time telling us that the Asian countries have come out of the crisis due to aggressive stimulus policies.

Speaking at a conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Mr. Bernanke said Asian countries had bounced back from the global recession faster than the rest of the world and had become the engine of the global economic recovery.

“By and large, countries in Asia came into the crisis with fairly strong macroeconomic fundamentals,” Mr. Bernanke said, and noted that countries like China, Japan and Korea had fought the downturn with aggressive stimulus programs.

Fuck it, man, let's just go back to the Gold Standard while you're at it, Ben!