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In a note seeking to "explain" why the US labor participation rate just crashed to a nearly 40 year low earlier today as another half a million Americans decided to exit the labor force bringing the total to 94.6 million people...... this is what the Atlanta Fed has to say about the most dramatic aberration to the US labor force in history: "Generally speaking, people in the 25–54 age group are the most likely to participate in the labor market. These so-called prime-age individuals are less likely to be making retirement decisions than older individuals and less likely to be...

Welcome to the worst day of the year for investors, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at stock futures this morning. Thank the portfolio window-dressers or bouncy dead cats, but the market looks set to fly. Anyway, that gloomy prognosis for the day fits nicely with the disastrous end to the quarter we’re headed for, set to finish with 8% to 9% losses for the big U.S. indexes. The quarter has delivered the biggest point declines for the Dow industrials DJIA, +1.41% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.82% since the end of 2008, and the biggest for the...

While the world breathlessly awaits the outcome of this week’s FOMC meeting—will the Federal Reserve raise interest rates or won’t it?—one thing is clear regardless: the Fed is driving the U.S. into a 2nd depression in order to carry out its one and only remit now that America’s ability to produce real jobs has been reduced to ash, namely, propping up criminal banks with multi-trillion-dollar giveaways. What’s so disturbing about the fatal path that the Fed has been on for 7 years is that it's one the Fed went down before, when—by its own admission—it extended and deepened the Great...

“Let me assure you, if the revenue environment weakens or interest-rate structures don’t move up, and the economy slows down, we’ll have to take out more costs,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said on Thursday at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference. And that would mean more job cuts.BofA is famous for whittling down its headcount in recent years. In Moynihan’s 25-slide presentation, there was this chart that shows just how skillfully he has trimmed down his workforce, chopping it by 25% overall since the second quarter of 2011:Wolf Street So if, as he said, “interest-rate structures don’t move...

WASHINGTON: The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday in a nod to concerns about a weak world economy, but left open the possibility of a modest policy tightening later this year. In what amounted to a tactical retreat, the US central bank said an array of global risks and other factors had convinced it to delay what would have been the first rate hike in nearly a decade. "Recent global economic and financial developments may restrain economic activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on inflation in the near term," the Fed said in...

In one of the most widely anticipated Federal Reserve decisions in decades, the U.S. central bank left interest rates unchanged Thursday. The Fed's pronouncement to leave rates at historic lows—where they’ve been since roughly the start of the Great Recession in 2008—signals that the U.S. economy has yet to fully recover from the near collapse. Market professionals are now looking ahead to a press conference from Fed Chair Janet Yellen at 2:30 p.m. EDT, searching for further hints as to the timing of the Fed’s future course of rate hikes. “Uncertainty from the Fed has been the biggest issue,” Stephen...

Fed decision day: The event traders across the globe have anticipated for months has finally arrived. As of 8:00 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were 43 points lower, or 0.26% to 16621. S&P 500 futures shed 6 points, or 0.31% to 1982, while Nasdaq 100 futures slid 10 points, or 0.24% to 4370. Today’s Markets Months of speculation about whether September was the month in which the Federal Reserve would begin to lift short-term interest rates is finally coming to a close. The Federal Open Market Committee meets for the final day of its two-day policy-setting meeting, which...

Global debt levels are dangerously high and central banks cannot keep the game going indefinitely, warns the high priest of orthodoxy Debt ratios have reached extreme levels across all major regions of the global economy, leaving the financial system acutely vulnerable to monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, the world's top financial watchdog has warned. The Bank for International Settlements said the wild market ructions of recent weeks and capital outflows from China are warning signs that the massive build-up in credit is coming back to haunt, compounded by worries that policymakers may be struggling to control events. "We...

U.S. equity markets were lower Monday morning as traders anxiously awaited this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting. As of 9:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 81 points, or 0.50% to 16350. The S&P 500 shed 8 points, or 0.45% to 1952, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 16 points, or 0.33% to 4806. Today’s Markets Wall Street waited with bated breath for the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s two-day, policy-setting meeting this week, which begins Wednesday and ends with a statement on monetary policy the day after. In recent weeks, forecasts for a September rate hike have...

A few months ago, a hurt Ben Bernanke put on his blogger hat and set out to explain why, in his mind, the unconventional policies undertaken by the Fed in the post-crisis years have not contributed to record income inequality. As we noted at the time, epic hilarity ensued. Bernanke’s explanation went something like this: while QE does indeed inflate asset prices, poor people have been getting poorer for quite some time, so sure, maybe the Fed contributed a little bit, but probably not a whole lot and besides, the more Keynes the better when it comes to smoothing out...

After a tumultuous week on the world’s stock markets, investors will be focused on Wall Street Monday ahead of another set of economic reports likely to steer the Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. The markets open Monday as investors digest news that the Fed is still actively considering a September rate hike. In a speech on Saturday, Stanley Fischer, the vice-chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors, suggested inflationary pressures could soon lead to an increase. His comments are likely to add to the volatility of already skittish...

On Friday morning at the Jackson Hole Summit, Judy Shelton of the Sound Money Project and Atlas Network spoke on the subject of the gold standard and addressed the perception that people who even dare to mention it are lunatics or, as The American Spectator noted earlier today, Quixotic. Shelton's presentation focused in the main on the numbers and the policies. Dr. Shelton pointed out that the Fed can't seem to face up to a simple, apparent, easily understood fact: Their policies aren't working. "The difference between our summit, and the one the Feds are holding up the road, is...

Former Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher made sound remarks when discussing the current market meltdown with CNBC on Tuesday. Although he is incorrect in his assertion that the United States central bank will do what’s right for the national economy and avoid monitoring daily activity reports, he was right that investors are addicted to easy money from quantitative easing, otherwise known as QE. “I don’t think there is a single member of the FOMC that’s going to react to one day’s market activity,” Fisher told the business news outlet. “Nobody on that committee would like to see that continue,...

China’s stuttering economy might come more strongly into view from the Rocky Mountains at this week’s Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers following the chaos in the stock markets. Many economists still expect the Federal Reserve to stay the course and start raising interest rates this year. Despite the wild see-sawing of US stocks after China’s “Black Monday” meltdown, the bet is on the central bank to move soon and start weaning the US off rates that have stayed near zero since 2008. The annual policy conference in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, starting onon Thursday, has traditionally...

U.S. Stock Market Correction Not Made In China – Ep.104 August 21st, 2015|0 Comments What a week for global stock markets, but in particular, the U.S. stock market, which had its worst week in 4 years The Dow Jones down better than 1,000 points – over 10% from its peak puts it in official correction territory One-third of the stocks in the S&P 500 are already down 20% from their highs The Dow lost more than half of the 1,000 points today – 530 points, which is the 9th biggest point decline ever This is on top of the 350...

All one needs to do is turn to the financial shows and get a litany of “financial experts” blaming the Federal Reserve and its coming rate hike for the recent market break. They are incorrect. The recent break in equity prices is not about a proposed and measly ¼ point rise in rates off of zero. Short term rates were between 4% and 5% in 2007 when the stock market made a then all time high of 14,000. Hand wringing over a ¼ pt raise is curious. The Federal Reserve’s mere hinting of a meager raise didn’t roll the Chinese...

On Tuesday, August 11, China began devaluing its currency unit, the yuan against the U.S. dollar. Later that day, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump denounced China, saying: "I think you have to do something to rein in China. They devalued their currency today. They're making it absolutely impossible for the United States to compete, and nobody does anything." For a candidate whose pitch is based upon being smarter than everyone else, Trump has taken a spectacularly stupid position with respect to China-not just economically, but politically. After all, it was less than three years ago that Mitt Romney threw away...

One of the most curiously persistent surrealisms of Washington, DC is the reflexive deference given the Federal Reserve System. The Washington elite tends to accord more infallibility to the Fed than do Catholics the Pope.... [snip] The big question is whether Fed officials can get it right after years in which they have regularly predicted a stronger economy than the one that materialized... [snip] ...let’s be blunt. If NASA suffered from comparable inaccuracy the manned spaceflight program would have been shut down by an endless series of Challenger-type catastrophes many years ago. With forecasts this bad is it any wonder...

The amusement is strong from this one.... The economy has made great gains and is approaching an acceptable normal. Policy should shortly acknowledge this reality. The Fed took extraordinary policy measures in response to extraordinary economic conditions. Conditions are no longer extraordinary. Compared to earlier in the year, we know a lot more and can shelve some concerns. We appear to be past the most acute concerns of a spillover from Europe. I have more confidence in the resilience of the economy today compared to even a few months ago. I am much less concerned about a reversal of economic...

The idea that there's a trade-off between inflation and unemployment seems embedded in the Federal Reserve's psyche. The Fed has not increased its benchmark federal funds target rate since 2006. It's waiting to see if a tighter labor market will push up wages and prices, so the Fed can achieve both full employment and its inflation target of 2%. The Fed's adherence to a negatively sloped Phillips curve — predicting lower unemployment obtained by higher inflation — is a flawed model for monetary policy. Indeed, money doesn't even enter the analysis, because the implicit assumption is that inflation is caused...