“Despite a Federal Reserve that doesn’t know what it is doing-raised rates far too fast (very low inflation, other parts of world slowing, lowering & easing) & did large scale tightening, $50 Billion/month, we are on course to have one of the best Months of June in US history.” “Our most difficult problem is not our competitors it is the Federal Reserve!” “Our Federal Reserve doesn’t have a clue” “The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch-he can’t putt!” he Fed is way off base with what they’re doing” “So far I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay. They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” “I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed. “The only problem our economy has is the Fed” The economy is very strong “despite the unnecessary and destructive actions taken by the Fed” The chance he would buckle to what the president of the United States said about policy above his knowledge of how it works just seems inconceivable.”įor those who need a refresher, here’s a sampling of what the president has “said” concerning monetary policy and policymakers: We also don’t conduct monetary policy in order to prove our independence.” Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan told the Post, “I know Jay Powell very well. There’s no place in our discussions for that. As the Washington Post’s Heather Long notes, “already there are concerns about too much risky corporate lending, and lower rates are only likely to encourage more of those loans,” adding that using up the tools the Fed has at its disposal now leaves the central bank with fewer ways to counteract an actual economic contraction down the road.įor his part, Powell insisted Wednesday that the Fed “never take into account political considerations. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren has warned that “insurance cuts” have a downside, because keeping rates low can lead to excessive borrowing and asset bubbles. Of course a rate cut now doesn’t make sense, and might actually put the economy at risk. All Trump had to do was keep up geopolitical trade uncertainty for a while, and he’d get the Fed to cut rates.” “Just read Powell’s comments during his recent congressional testimony, and trade comes up eight times in the context of weighing on the global economy. “There is just no question that Powell has been ‘Trumped’ here,” Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc., told Politico. In other words, the president’s pointless, self-defeating trade war got him exactly what he wanted, like a small child whose tantrums finally break his handlers. “The ongoing uncertainty is making some companies more cautious about their capital spending,” he said. Powell cited weak manufacturing and business-investment data-which, oops, the 2017 tax cuts were supposed to turbocharge-and fears surrounding Tariff Man’s ongoing trade war. In his remarks Powell said that today’s action was to protect the economy “against downside risks”,” like a slowdown in the global economy, and, largely, the policies of.one Donald Trump. The move, while widely expected, was seen as largely unnecessary, given that unemployment is low, consumers are still spending, and the stock market is doing well. Despite a humming economy, the central bank announced that it would cut interest rates for the first time in over a decade, lowering the target range for the benchmark rate a quarter point to between 2% and 2.25%, and signaling that more cuts may (or may not) be in the offing. Almost exactly a year ago, Donald Trump began a series of increasingly batshit attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and on Wednesday he finally got what he wanted, bondholders be damned.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |