Questions for Ben Bernanke

Since he's going to take them, here are a few in no particular order:

• You testified in front of Congress, under oath that you would not monetize the Federal Debt. Yet one of the Fed Presidents, Mr. Hoenig, has said that you are, under any reasonable interpretation of reality, now monetizing federal debt. How was your previous statement, made under oath to Congress, not an act of perjury?
• In the lead-up to the crisis of 2007 and 2008 you emphatically stated on multiple occasions that you saw no material risk of recession or of the housing downturn becoming a widespread phenomena. Not only was the first economic call incorrect, the second was spectacularly wrong to the point of complete irrelevance, particularly given the recent Case-Shiller report. Why should anyone believe that similar claims of ability to avoid serious inflationary or other disruptive impacts of your monetary policy decisions, given your past track record of inaccuracy?
• How do you justify stealing essentially all of the income of Senior Citizens and others who are not in a position to take market risk? To put this in perspective the average rate on 1-year CDs were around 5.25% prior to the collapse in 2007. $1 million in such a CD would return $52,500 - enough money for a retired couple, along with Social Security, to have a reasonable lifestyle. Accumulating $1 million, while not particularly easy, was entirely possible for most working couples during their lifetimes. $50,000 is reasonably close to the median household income; as such a retired couple could thus live a decent middle-class lifestyle on this income without taking market risk.
  
  Today a 1 year CD yields, at best, about 1.25%. That same household now has an income from their CDs of $12,500. This is below the poverty line for a two-person household (currently $14,570.) Your zero-interest rate policy has literally resulted in the descent of an average-income retired household into poverty. Given that 13% of the population of the United States is over 65, how do you justify intentionally plunging those retirees into poverty?
• You have repeatedly claimed that your "QE2" program was intended to "help the economy." Yet it is clear that this bond-buying was, in fact, very close in size to the gross federal deficit during that time. How do you defend the obvious financing of the Federal deficit and when do you intend to stop doing so, given that everyone, including you in Congressional testimony, have stated that this deficit spending is unsustainable?

Those will do for a start.