Days
Commentator
... because after all, the economy is burning up and inflation is out of control?
A long time ago (about 10 years) I predicted the dollar would go into a flat spin and bottom out. At the time, I was a mortgage banker and what I was talking about was the governor for lending rates on real estate... the discount rate. The discount rate was held too low by Greenspan and it created the housing bubble, then Bernanke raised it by a 1/4% each quarterly meeting for 3 years which popped the housing bubble, then the rate collapsed again. Today, there is scant housing activity apart from foreclosures, so no one is even thinking about touching the discount rate.
The other governor for lending rates is the federal funds rate, which literally prices the cost of money to the banks. After the market collapses of 2008, the federal funds rate collapsed with the economic collapse that followed the market collapse. The slow recovery of investment in the stock market for the past five years has been the direct result of leaving the federal funds rate untouched. Now the head of the FED (Yellen) wants to look at raising that rate, which will only have one result; cut off the price rise in stocks. She is wanting to do to the stock bubble what Bernanke did to the housing bubble; pop it.
There is no reason in the world to mess with the federal funds rate on main street. people are out of work, living in poverty, and even college graduates can't find a job. Keeping the price of money low, extremely low, hasn't changed that. We have no problem with inflation on the street, just the opposite; even the oil companies can't pry enough blood from a rock to raise oil prices. The economy is not supposed to inflate slower than 3% per year, but it has been around 1-2% all through this 'recovery' ... the only thing recovering is stock prices. Hence, the stock bubble. Stocks are way over valued again, even more than they were when the market collapsed in 2008. Get ready for the double dip we predicted six years back, but it didn't happen because the FED countered with dropping the Federal Funds rate.
Governors on the Board are revolting against raising the Federal Funds rate, a couple of them say, there's no need to raise the rate, not just yet; why? Uhm, because it will pop the stock bubble and the market will collapse again... and it could be just as tough to find a new bottom as it was in the Fall of 2008. (pun intended, Autumn of 2008) Why another panic, you ask? because we have not recovered the infrastructure at all, there just isn't any justification for any stock price when you look at the health of the nation.
They will pop the bubble, count on it. I'm not saying there will be another recovery. Even if there is, it will be, at best, the same slow slog this one was. What no one has factored in is the bond maturation schedule for the Treasury. I don't know what it is, but it is sure to be a bitch, once they pop the stock bubble. Revenues will plummet, we may see deficits as high as $2 Trillion handed off to the next president. And as I said, there might not be any recovery, we might just spiral into deflation. With housing already in the toilet, and the manufacturing base gone overseas, the next smoke and mirrors act will be hard pressed to fool anyone.
A long time ago (about 10 years) I predicted the dollar would go into a flat spin and bottom out. At the time, I was a mortgage banker and what I was talking about was the governor for lending rates on real estate... the discount rate. The discount rate was held too low by Greenspan and it created the housing bubble, then Bernanke raised it by a 1/4% each quarterly meeting for 3 years which popped the housing bubble, then the rate collapsed again. Today, there is scant housing activity apart from foreclosures, so no one is even thinking about touching the discount rate.
The other governor for lending rates is the federal funds rate, which literally prices the cost of money to the banks. After the market collapses of 2008, the federal funds rate collapsed with the economic collapse that followed the market collapse. The slow recovery of investment in the stock market for the past five years has been the direct result of leaving the federal funds rate untouched. Now the head of the FED (Yellen) wants to look at raising that rate, which will only have one result; cut off the price rise in stocks. She is wanting to do to the stock bubble what Bernanke did to the housing bubble; pop it.
There is no reason in the world to mess with the federal funds rate on main street. people are out of work, living in poverty, and even college graduates can't find a job. Keeping the price of money low, extremely low, hasn't changed that. We have no problem with inflation on the street, just the opposite; even the oil companies can't pry enough blood from a rock to raise oil prices. The economy is not supposed to inflate slower than 3% per year, but it has been around 1-2% all through this 'recovery' ... the only thing recovering is stock prices. Hence, the stock bubble. Stocks are way over valued again, even more than they were when the market collapsed in 2008. Get ready for the double dip we predicted six years back, but it didn't happen because the FED countered with dropping the Federal Funds rate.
Governors on the Board are revolting against raising the Federal Funds rate, a couple of them say, there's no need to raise the rate, not just yet; why? Uhm, because it will pop the stock bubble and the market will collapse again... and it could be just as tough to find a new bottom as it was in the Fall of 2008. (pun intended, Autumn of 2008) Why another panic, you ask? because we have not recovered the infrastructure at all, there just isn't any justification for any stock price when you look at the health of the nation.
They will pop the bubble, count on it. I'm not saying there will be another recovery. Even if there is, it will be, at best, the same slow slog this one was. What no one has factored in is the bond maturation schedule for the Treasury. I don't know what it is, but it is sure to be a bitch, once they pop the stock bubble. Revenues will plummet, we may see deficits as high as $2 Trillion handed off to the next president. And as I said, there might not be any recovery, we might just spiral into deflation. With housing already in the toilet, and the manufacturing base gone overseas, the next smoke and mirrors act will be hard pressed to fool anyone.
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