Posts Tagged ‘Fed’

Who’s Supporting Whom For Fed Chairperson

The over-the-top punditry surrounding the choice of the next Fed chairperson is getting tiresome. Nevertheless, if you can’t get enough here’s a scorecard from the WSJ Real Time Economics Blog on who supports either Yellen or Summers. You can see from the tally that Yellen is the overwhelming choice which I take to mean that […]

No Direction But Down For The Next Fed Leader

Thank God for procrastination! The Obama administration indicates it will wait until fall to name a new Fed chair. Not a minute too soon we get a reprieve from the gusher of opinion on who the prospective choice. Personally I was becoming totally conflicted. Is Larry Summers truly a jerk, albeit a very smart one? […]

Exiting QE Under False Pretenses

As the exceptionally well-informed readers of this little blog know, the Fed has signaled that once the unemployment rate reaches 6.5% it will declare “Mission Accomplished” and begin to unwind it’s various monetary stimulus programs. As this little snippet from the WSJ blog points out, getting to that magic number doesn’t necessarily mean that everything […]

A “Social Depression” That Only The Fed Can Cure

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is out with a new post suggesting that the US is perilously close to political gridlock which is preventing the Fed from engaging in more QE and putting the country at risk of sliding into a “Japanese trap.” His prescription calls for the Fed to make massive bond purchases but with a twist: […]

Fed Rolls Out The Same Rusty Cannon

Well the Fed has spoken and the Cliff Notes version is that the economy is starting to suck again and their plan is to reinvest their maturing MBS portfolio into Treasuries. Note that they aren’t going to expand their balance sheet, just not let it get smaller. Basically saying this is how they’ll do QE2 […]

Fed President Lacker Suggest It May Be Time To Back Off On QE

This is interesting. Richmond Fed President, Jeffrey Lacker, is out today with comments suggesting it might be time for the Fed to start pulling back a bit. From Reuters: The U.S. economy appears to have stabilized and may not need all the stimulus the central bank had planned to offer, Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President […]

Zero Hedge Doubles Down

Zero Hedge seems to have his panties twisted. Instead of just admitting his post accusing the Fed of rigging the bond auctions may have been over the top or at least just moving on to something else, he decided to come out swinging. Sigh. Here is what I had to say yesterday and it contains […]