By John H. Makin

During testimony to the Joint Economic Committee on the economic outlook Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made a rare misstep. He left markets confused as to where Fed policy was headed. Here were the headlines in various newspapers Thursday morning:

• WSJ: Fed leaves market guessing
• New York times: Fed endorses stimulus, but message is garbled
• Washington Post: Fed’s mixed message takes stocks on a wild ride

These are not headlines that any Fed chairman wants to see on a day after a testimony at a time when there is a great deal of uncertainty about the path of the economy and about the path of monetary policy.

The problem arose when Chairman Bernanke was answering a series of probing questions by Joint Economic Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas). Bernanke had given a very dovish testimony, suggesting that the Fed was not about to step away from aggressive QE until the economy improved substantially.

But during the Brady Q&A, Bernanke muddied the waters. When

There’s just about no tolerance left in America for wealthy people griping about their financial woes. But put down the pitchforks for a moment and consider one possible exception we might all learn something from.

The money-news site The Billfold recently ran an interview with an anonymous physician who earns $570,000 a year and says, “I know that technically I am in the 1%, but I don’t feel rich at all.” He went on to explain how he owns a home worth nearly $1 million, three cars, a couple of investment properties, and a chunk of a profitable healthcare company yet still frets that he doesn’t have enough. “I don’t feel secure,” he said. “Before I had a job, the six-figure mark was a goal for everyone. And now I’ve hit the half-million dollar mark. I don’t know if I’d feel rich if I ever met the seven-figure mark.”

Commenters howled, of course, deriding the discontented doc’s self-indulgence and making many predictable observations about materialism run amok. “It’s emblematic of the