Free Republic

Listening to Janet Yellen splitting hairs and blathering in circles about the state of the economy yesterday was enough to put you in mind of a paint-by-the-numbers robot built in the labs at MIT and programmed by its Keynesian economics department. After all, the latter has also inflicted on the world Paul Samuelson, Stanley Fischer, and his infamous student, Ben Bernanke.So why not a four-fer?There is only one question that Yellen needs to answer and then all else is readily explained. To wit, does she actually believe that the money market rate——as formerly measured by Fed funds before Bernanke nationalized the interbank market in September 2008——is a wholly owned property of the...

The U.S. Federal Reserve is still enabling financial markets. The central bank on Wednesday again declined to raise rates, despite recent remarks from Chair Janet Yellen suggesting an increase was becoming more likely. The Fed counts talking to the market – what it calls giving “forward guidance” – as one of its tools, but the story has changed so often that Yellen and her colleagues might do better being less chatty. The Fed initially signaled four rate hikes in 2016 after raising the range for the federal funds rate to 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent last December... ...the U.S. economy...

The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday after its two-day policy meeting, as expected, and longer-term rate projections show an even slower pace of increases. Still, policymakers painted a mostly upbeat picture about the job market and overall growth and signaled that the Fed's key rate will rise before year-end. Markets have increasingly been pricing in a December hike... ...Fed's forecasts show policymakers expect three rate hikes through the end of 2017, down from five at their June meeting. The estimate for the fed funds rate in 2017 has slipped to 1.1% in 2017 from a 1.6% view in...

So who is Alan Greenspan suggesting is crazy? We ask because, according to the Bloomberg news ticker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve refused comment when asked to whom he was referring... ...a country to be undermined by — how should I say it — crazies.” No doubt the Democratic Party press is going to start suggesting that the crazies to whom Mr. Greenspan was referring are the Republicans lead by Donald Trump... ...might be prepared to see America default on the federal debt. He said he’d “borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts.” That drove the...

The betting is that the Federal Reserve won't raise interest rates at this week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, its key policymaking body. There are already complaints that the Fed, which cut short-term rates to near zero in late 2008, is waiting too long to reverse low rates. Last December, the Fed increased rates by a quarter of a percentage point. It hasn't done anything since. "The Fed will make a major mistake if it doesn't raise rates," says economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics. "The job market is strong and very close to full employment. Inflation is...

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump told CNBC on Monday the Federal Reserve is doing what President Barack Obama wants by keeping interest rates low. Fed Chair Janet Yellen and central bank policymakers are very political, and Yellen should be “ashamed” of what she’s doing to the country, Trump said, adding the Fed is not even close to being independent. By keeping interest rates low, the Fed has created a “false stock market,” Trump argued in a wide-ranging interview in which he also talked about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s health problems . Trump said rates are being kept lower to bolster...

"...Donald Trump told reporters Monday that the Federal Reserve is keeping interests rates at record lows to help President Obama and to keep the economy from going down. "They’re keeping the rates artificially low so the economy doesn’t go down," Trump said in response to a question about a potential rate hike by the Federal Reserve this month. "So that Obama can say he did a good job. That's the only reason that the rates are so low. They're keeping the rates artificially low so that Obama can go out and play golf after January and say that he did...

U.S. equities traded lower on Friday as concerns the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates this month loomed following a speech made by a Fed official, while eyeing falling oil prices. "The commentary from a voting member that the Fed may be forced to raise rates is important," said Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital. "I think the market needs to understand that there may be a rate hike coming. Whether it's September or December, it doesn't matter big picture." The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 300 points lower, with 3M and Boeing contributing the...

Negative interest rates are spreading like a virus. Central banks in the Eurozone, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan all have below-zero policy rates. “NIRP,” as economists call a negative interest rate policy, is a desperation move—but the only move those central banks have. The Federal Reserve hasn’t followed—yet. When the next recession strikes, I believe Janet Yellen will choose to break the zero lower bound. The rationale was laid out in Jackson Hole. Look behind the headlines and you’ll see the Fed already preparing for NIRP. In theory, negative rates should encourage consumers and businesses to spend more freely and stimulate...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that the case for a rate hike has "strengthened" in recent months, as labor market slack is fading. The U.S. economy is "now nearing the Federal Reserve's statutory goals of maximum employment and price stability," Yellen said. Financial markets, which already have been pricing in a good chance of a rate hike in December, initially took her comments in stride. Investors are less concerned about the timing of the next hike than the one after that. Treasury yields initially rose a bit, then headed slightly lower after release of Yellen's speech transcript. That...

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (Reuters) - Federal Reserve policymakers are signaling they could raise U.S. interest rates soon but they are already weighing new tools they may need to fight the next recession. A solid U.S. labor market "has strengthened" the case for the first rate increase since last December, Fed Chair Janet Yellen told a central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Several of her colleagues said the increase could come as soon as next month if the economy does well. Further rate hikes are expected to be few and far between as the U.S. central bank tries to balance...

While it is not exactly clear what public relations goals the privately-owned Fed (recall Bernanke's Former Advisor: "People Would Be Stunned To Know The Extent To Which The Fed Is Privately Owned") hoped to achieve by launching its first Facebook page last Thursday, the resultant outpouring of less than euphoric public reactions suggest this latest PR effort may have been waster at best, and at worst backfired at a magnitude that matches JPM's infamous #AskJPM twitter gaffe. Here are some examples of the public responses to the Fed's original posting: they all share a certain uniformity... [Screen captures] [More by...

The Fed has not only failed to fix what's broken in the U.S. economy--it has actively mad those problems worse. The Federal Reserve claims its monetary interventions saved America from economic ruin in 2009, and have bolstered growth ever since. Don't hurt yourself patting your own backs, Fed governors past and present: it's bad enough that the Fed can't fix the economy's real problems--its policies actively make them worse. After seven long years of politicos and the financial media glorifying the Federal Reserve's policies as god-like in their power and efficacy, let's take a quick look at the results of...

The Federal Reserve is raising expectations for an interest rate rise this year, even as early as next month, after two policymakers on Tuesday said the economic stars now appear to be aligning despite weak U.S. economic growth in the first half of 2016. New York Fed President William Dudley said "it's possible" to raise rates at the Sept. 20-21 policy meeting given evidence of wage gains and a tighter labor market that could boost inflation, while Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta Fed said a hike next month is in play. The comments, which prompted investors to boost bets on...

The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday afternoon at the end of its two-day policy meeting. Policymakers said "near-term risks" to the economy have faded, but investors generally saw the central bank in no rush to raise rates. Key points from the FOMC policy statement: "Near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished." "On balance, payrolls and other labor market indicators point to some increase in labor utilization in recent months." "Household spending has been growing strongly but business fixed investment has been soft." "Inflation is expected to remain low... ...Fed statement was a tiny step toward an eventual...

Soon, the Federal Reserve could be forced for the first time to open its books and expose its machinations to Congress. Senator Rand Paul (shown, R-Ky.) reports that he is “about seven votes short” of the 60 votes he believes would be procedurally sufficient to get a vote in the Senate. In an interview with Kitco News just moments after he left the stage at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Paul explained that while the House of Representatives has passed numerous measures aimed at auditing the Federal Reserve, it is “taking forever in the Senate.” He promises that he will...

The Cleveland Fed’s Loretta Mester is a clueless apparatchik and Fed lifer, who joined the system in 1985 fresh out of Barnard and Princeton and has imbibed in its Keynesian groupthink and institutional arrogance ever since. So it’s not surprising that she was out flogging—-albeit downunder in Australia—- the next step in the Fed’s rolling coup d’ etat. We’re always assessing tools that we could use,” Mester told the ABC’s AM program. “In the US we’ve done quantitative easing and I think that’s proven to be useful. “So it’s my view that [helicopter money] would be sort of the next...

The Federal Reserve's monetary policies have manufactured a "super bubble" that " … may give us the worst economic downturn including the Great Depression," economist Peter Schiff declared during an interview with Accuracy in Media. He explained that low interest rates prop up the government’s feckless fiscal policies and generate " … really systemic structural problems in the economy … " that “manifest themselves in bubbles that then burst." " … the Fed’s policy does not work and has not solved our problems, it has simply exacerbated our problems, and … we're gonna have a currency crisis, we're gonna have...

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement 1st Time In History Presidential Candidate Under Federal Investigation

Do the policy actions of monetary authorities actually affect economic activity? We know that time and other resources are expended, but what can we observe about the results of such efforts? In answering this question, it is helpful to begin with an account of how monetary authorities in discretionary, fiat currency regimes are traditionally thought to influence economic activity. Here, every college course in intermediate monetary theory tells essentially the same story. A nation’s money supply comprises two distinct components: paper currency and deposits at banking organizations. The former was the largest component in earlier times, but the latter has...

The largest U.S. financial institutions have enough armor to withstand the turmoil of a major and prolonged national and global recession, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The central bank’s annual “stress tests” show that the 33 largest financial institutions — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — all hold more capital than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. They also hold enough capital that, even if faced with billions of dollars in losses from loans as a result of an economic crisis, they would continue to function. The stress tests were created in the...

The U.S. Federal Reserve, already undecided on when next to raise interest rates, now has one more reason to wait: Britain's vote on Thursday to leave the European Union. Not that the Fed needed another reason. Weaker-than-expected growth in U.S. jobs in recent months had already forced U.S. central bankers to put off a rate hike at their meeting last week.But while data due early next month on June U.S. payrolls growth could help clear up doubts about the strength of the labor market, the political and economic consequences of Britain's exit from the EU will take months or years...

Janet Yellen has been doing a lot of talking lately, with more and more attention paid to the words she says and the contexts in which she delivers them. Maybe, then, it just seems as if the Fed Chair is speaking more, since it may be just as likely that she isn't doing anything different and that it is us who have changed. The fact that the FOMC has failed to follow through but for that one time in December is very likely the cause. Two years ago, Yellen spoke a lot of words but they were familiar, unnoticeable noise...

Economy: Federal Reserve policymakers are now unanimous: Forget about a hike in interest rates for now. Our only question is, what took them so long? Just a month ago we were told repeatedly that a Fed rate hike was "baked in the cake." After all, jobs seemed to be growing smartly, consumers were perking up, and Fed data showed net wealth at near-record levels. Then reality intervened in the form of a 38,000-job gain for May — a shockingly big shortfall, considering the consensus for 160,000 net new jobs. Then, despite President Obama's jawboning, British voters look increasingly likely to...

John Tamny, of Forbes and RealClearMarkets, has penned a highly original and stimulating look at the economics of money and banking: Who Needs the Fed? I sang the praises of his remarkable Popular Economics when that came out, and now this just-published book has me singing them again, in a new key. Let me note up front that there are substantial parts of this book with which I, so far at least, disagree. I have exchanged some emails with Mr. Tamny on these issues and nothing has been resolved. This is a not A Bad Thing: it can be actually...

Review by Steve Parkhurst: Who Needs The Fed?: What Taylor Swift, Uber, and Robots Tell Us About Money, Credit, and Why We Should Abolish America’s Central Bank, is not a dense economics book like the macro or micro economics of our youth. This book is written much more clearly than those old textbooks, and is actually interesting. The many rather short chapters make their case and then move along to the next. Tamny’s utter disdain for the Fed is both evident, and humorous along the way. But his book is not an angry diatribe, instead it is a fact-filled, example-laden...

“Someone” is getting desperate. Throughout the last week, anytime stocks have begun to correct or drop, “someone” has bought S&P 500 futures to prop the market up. Anyone who’s been involved with the markets for a while knows the difference between real buyers and manipulation. This is manipulation plain and simple. Look at all those “V” rallies. Three days in a row stocks opened DOWN and someone immediately stepped in and began buying aggressively. Another tell-tale sign of manipulation: the buying halts almost the moment stocks get to 2,100 on the S&P 500. At this point the manipulation ends. And...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made her usual bipolar remarks yesterday in a speech: Last week’s employment report was disappointing... ...Yellen... ...sounded like a politician and basically said nothing. I’m now going to tell you how Yellen’s comments will sound ... YELLEN: “Good afternoon everyone. FYI, this is a freakin’ OMG moment for us at the Fed. President Trump is bustin’ our cajones, and I’m pretty sure it’s because the Fed is being run by a dame. “The economy? I bet you want to know what the economy is doing. I could tell you this and tell you that. But...

May 31, 2016 Jeff_Berwick It seems barely a day passes now without some big name person warning of imminent collapse. The latest is Alan Greenspan. In an interview on Thursday he told Fox News that Venezuela is now under martial law and that “America is next.” He said that what was happening in Venezuela was inevitably going to take place in the US. I agree with this. In fact, we said this exact thing just last week with our article, “Venezuela Descends Into Chaos… Europe and US Next.” Funny enough, a few brainwashed sheeple said we were crazy for saying...

A U.S. Federal Reserve Bank president said Monday the global markets seem to be poised for an interest rate hike this summer. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, said his outlook was not "too surprising" since signs are pointing to a second quarter rebound in the U.S. gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. Bullard's remarks, made at an international conference in Seoul, South Korea, follow revised data Friday from the U.S. Commerce Department that the economy expanded faster than previously thought in the first three months of...

Last Friday, May 20, 2016, something happened in the U.S. Senate you won’t hear about in the mainstream media. You can read about it here. Gary Aminoff comments in the following short video.

Chinese officials plan to ask their American counterparts in annual talks next month about the chance of a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase in June, according to people familiar with the matter. The Chinese delegation will try to deduce whether a June or a July rate rise is more likely, as the nation’s policy makers prepare for the potential impact on financial markets and the yuan, the people said, asking not to be named as the discussions were private. In China’s view, if the Fed does lift borrowing costs, a July move would be preferable, the people said. A People’s Bank...

When the economy stumbles, can the Fed still catch its fall? A growing number of economists, market analysts and investors worry that the answer is no. The Federal Reserve’s radical approach to monetary policy since the financial crisis, they believe, has confounded its ability to do anything about a potential downturn — or an unexpected shock to the economy. Worse, others argue that by staying with a zero interest rate for so long, the Fed has put itself into a box... ...the dilemma. The post-financial crisis economic recovery still looks shaky. The Atlanta Fed’s widely followed GDPNow number, a timely...

There are two possible explanations for why markets so badly misjudged how close the Federal Reserve is to resuming interest-rate hikes. One possibility is that investors misread Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s speech on March 29 asserting that “caution is especially warranted” when it comes to raising rates with global risks so high and policymakers so low on conventional ammunition to counteract a downturn. Yet it seems much more likely that markets received the surprisingly dovish message as it was intended and responded just as Yellen hoped, easing global stresses that had grown as the dollar’s rise exacerbated pressure on China...

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she would support changes to the top ranks of the Federal Reserve, an issue recently championed by progressive groups amid debate over how long the central bank should keep supporting the American economy. The Fed is led by a seven-member board of governors based in Washington and a dozen regional bank presidents based across the country, from New York to Kansas City to San Francisco. The governors are nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate, but regional bank presidents are selected by their boards of directors, whose occupants are chosen by...

The U.S. Federal Reserve may need more powers to provide emergency funding to securities firms in times of extreme stress in order to deal with a liquidity crunch, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Sunday. "Providing these firms with access to the discount window might be worth exploring," Dudley said in prepared remarks at a financial markets conference in Amelia Island, Florida organized by the Atlanta Fed. The discount window is a credit facility through which banks borrow directly from the U.S. central bank in order to cope with liquidity shortages. The Fed currently has limited ability...

Anyone questioning the sustainability and rightness of The New Normal is immediately attacked by the mainstream-media defenders of the crumbling status quo. Not only is everything that broke in 2008 fixed, everything's going great globally, and anyone who dares question this narrative in a tin-foil hat conspiracy nut or simply an annoyingly doom-and-gloomer who recalcitrantly refuses to accept the positive glories of official statistics: low unemployment, rising valuations of stock market Unicorns, etc. But the New Normal is anything but normal; all the readings of artificial life-support and manipulation are off the charts. If the New Normal were indeed a...

“Negative interest rates” have become a phenomenon with economists and the media. But I’m writing to tell you something about negative interest rates you haven’t heard. You certainly won’t hear about it in the mainstream press. What’s coming at you is a historic event. It’s something our grandchildren will hear stories about, much like the Great Depression or the Cold War. It could send the price of gold much higher in the coming years. If you know what’s coming, it could mean the difference between having lots of free cash in retirement and barely getting by. And please remember this...

Donald Trump assailed the media on Monday for what he said was a misrepresentation of his comments on debt, rejecting the notion that he would have the United States default on his debt. "I said if we can buy back government debt as a discount. In other words, if interest rates go up and we can buy bonds back as a discount, if we are liquid enough as a country we should do that. In other words, we can buy back debt as a discount," the presumptive Republican nominee said in a telephone interview on CNN's "New Day." Those who...

The Winter of 2015-2016, which came to an end a few weeks ago, has been officially designated as the mildest in the U.S. in 121 years according to NOAA. While this fact will certainly add a major talking point in the global warming debate, it should also be front and center in the current economic discussion. The fact that it isn't is testament to the blatantly self-serving manner in which economic cheerleaders blame the weather when it's convenient, but ignore it when it's not. If economists were consistent (and that's a colossal "if"), the good weather would be taken as...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is happy with the job done by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, with whom he is meeting on Monday to discuss regulatory issues and world economy, the White House said. "The president has been pleased with the way she has fulfilled what is a critically important job," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing.

NEW YORK — Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen offered an upbeat view of the U.S. economy Thursday and affirmed the central bank’s next step is likely to raise interest rates. But the central-bank chief didn’t say when she wants the Fed to boost borrowing costs again. “We think a gradual path of rate increases will be appropriate” given the progress the economy has made and is likely to continue to make, Yellen said as part of a panel discussion involving all the living chairs of the Federal Reserve past and present. She was joined on stage at the International House...

Speaking before a packed audience at the prestigious Economic Club of New York, Fed chair Janet Yellen basically announced that there would be no rate hikes for quite some time - maybe once before year end, maybe not. Her key point was that the global economy is worse today than it was in December, back when the Fed took its target rate up a quarter point. I think she's right. I also think she is paying more attention to forward-looking, inflation-sensitive financial and commodity-market prices. This is good. Very good. Yellen cited shrinking inflation spreads in the Treasury bond market,...

Janet Yellen signaled that the Fed is grappling with the problem I have been warning about: the dollar has become the de facto currency and the Fed is indeed becoming the world’s central bank. Yellen has admitted that everyone is lobbying the Fed to surrender its domestic policy objectives for international ones. This is precisely what took place in 1927. Yellen stated that the Fed should worry less about inflation domestically than about global growth risks. She pointed to the slowdown in China and depressed commodity prices, but Europe is a real basket case. She used the words that “caution...

They say it's broccoli, and they say the hell with it. But Big Brother is watching you, kids: The federal government is taking steps to fine schools that do not comply with first lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service issued a proposed rule Monday to codify parts of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by Mrs. Obama. The regulation would punish schools and state departments with fines for “egregious or persistent disregard” for the lunch rules that imposed sodium and calorie limits and banned white grains.It can't happen...

Five consecutive weeks of gains makes it hard to argue that we’re in a bear market. While it may not seem like much has changed since the markets last swooned, a few key developments remain supportive of stock prices.In particular, a shifted stance on monetary policy, change in the trajectory of the dollar, and recovery in oil prices have turned sellers into buyers.The Fed Last Wednesday the Federal Reserve confirmed what many had anticipated going into the latest FOMC meeting: that the Fed would have to back off of its four-rate-hike plan for 2016.For some time now, the Fed’s...

Stocks haven't done much in a while. Wednesday marked the eight-straight day that the S&P 500 had closed less than 1 percent above or below its prior closing price. Ominously, the last time the market staged this long a period of quiescence was in early August — shortly before stocks took a gut-wrenching tumble. Now, as then, "we are at a precarious position," Erin Gibbs of S&P Investment Advisory said Wednesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "We're trading at fairly high valuation and earnings growth doesn't look that good, so any big shocks — disappointment from China, any movement from the...

The Federal Reserve's years-long campaign to sheepishly back away from its own policy forecasts continued in earnest last week when it officially reduced the four expected 2016 quarter point hikes, suggested back in December, to just two. Given the deteriorating economic outlook, I believe there can be little doubt that the Fed will soon complete the capitulation process and remove all expectations for additional hikes this year. Even before that happens, savvy observers should have already concluded that the Federal Reserve is stuck in the monetary mud just as firmly now as it has been since the dawn of the...

The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged today and lowered its economic forecasts after a turbulent start to the year in financial markets and lackluster U.S. growth persuaded the central bank to reassess the timing and magnitude of its plan to raise rates. The Fed maintained its target for interest rates at a range of 0.25 to 0.50 percent to give the U.S. recovery more time to get on a stable track without making recovery more difficult for the rest of the world, where growth is flagging. Only one member of the Federal Reserve's open market committee dissented...

The Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates unchanged at the end of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, but policymakers may signal fresh monetary action in the next few months, perhaps in June. The Fed will issue its policy statement at 2 p.m. ET, along with new economic forecasts. Fed Chairwoman will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. The central bank raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade in December. But financial market turmoil, perhaps partially fueled by that December move, along with weaker economic data spurred policymakers to hold off on further tightening...