Posted on 10/30/2013 11:37:27 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve extended its support for a slowing U.S. economy on Wednesday, sounding a bit less optimistic about growth and saying it will keep buying $85 billion in bonds per month for the time being.
In announcing the widely expected decision, Fed officials nodded to weaker economic prospects due in part to a fiscal fight in Washington that shuttered much of the government for 16 days earlier this month.
The Fed indicated the recovery in housing had lost some steam, while noting some reversal in a recent spike in borrowing costs.
"Available data suggest that household spending and business fixed investment advanced, while the recovery in the housing sector slowed somewhat in recent months," the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee said. "Fiscal policy is restraining economic growth."
The labor market has shown "some" further improvement, the Fed said, tempering its description after a recent weakening in the jobs figures. It dropped a reference to a "tightening of financial conditions observed in recent months" from its list of risks to the outlook, but many economists stuck with bets for stimulus to stay into next year.
"Until the economic data strengthens, and strengthens meaningfully, I think expectations for tapering are going to remain subdued," said Rishna Memani, chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds in New York. "The likelihood of anything happening in December is modest."
Esther George, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, dissented against the decision as she has at every FOMC meeting this year, favoring a modest reduction in the pace of bond purchases.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
We are in a recovery in the same way the problems with obamacare are just a website glitch. We are in a depression and anyone saying otherwise is a liar.
Wasn’t it 980 Billion?
The can today weighs 20 times what the foot weighs... this will end up with the foot that kicks the can... breaking bones.
Good point == close to $1 Trillion.
Showing my age. Billion used to seem like a lot of money.
I no longer talk about age... it is just too painful! ;-)
A trillion... which is so much it truly boggles the mind... seems like a small amount these days... you know... pocket change for celebrities.
Can we bury Keynesian economics once and for all now?
Snort. These people believe no such thing. LOL. What they DO believe is that monetization serves as a very effective mechanism for their continued looting operations. And they couldn't be more right; after all, the proof is in the pudding.
They couldn't possibly begin to give a sh!t about maximum economic output, aggregate productive utility, or any other host of cover stories foisted on clueless sheep to rationalize their actions.
One of the best things about Obamacare, is that it's in many ways a mirror image of the war-on-drugs: an incredible, wealth destroying mechanism that transfers savings & capital to chosen cronies who reap immense profits from bid rigging & insider trading while providing associated "services" and "equipment".
I'm not sure when we transitioned to this universal con game, but we're so far gone at this point that I cheer on all efforts at keeping the game alive. There are so many ways to make money in these kinds of corrupt markets, it almost boggles the mind.
the only real question is, after the crash, how many months of food and supplies have they stashed in the bunkers to hide the politicians from the proletariats with pitchforks?
“Dem banks are goin’ ta make some bones.”
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Dey ain’t gonna make no bones when ain’t nobody got no bones to givem.
Dey gonna bone us, fer sure, Rip.
“It’s hard to believe, but most people don’t know that.”
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A few years ago when we kept hearing about Bill Gates eighty billion dollar fortune I tried to explain to someone that it was not real because most of it was in Microsoft stock and if Gates had started to sell more than a very small percentage at one time the price would have crashed. I couldn’t get the point across. Many people really cannot differentiate between real wealth and money in an age when American money is essentially a number and nothing more.
And the way they do it you can’t even get rich by selling all that ink and hundred percent rag for all that money that, in the words of Gerald Celente, “Is not worth the paper it’s NOT printed on.”
That's the good news. The bad news is Federal interest payments will rise from 2% now to 10% or more. That means we will pay a trillion instead of 200B for interest which suck down 1/2 or more of tax revenue since that revenue will plummet.
A second bit of bad news is most major banks struggle or croak since their carry trade income goes away along with the mortgage machine money. But that's good in the long run.
Not really, it's bits in a spreadsheet at the Fed. If they sold that debt the market would tank and interest rates would skyrocket. So they are not going to do that. The end game is default. Americans will get to start over.
That's my point. It's just a computer invention. Why sell it to anyone? Why not just press the "delete" button? The Fed is a private enterprise owned by mysterious zillionaires. They'd still be zillionaires, and we wouldn't have the debt.
I have a hypothetical question. Let’s say there ever is a banking crisis and the government got creative with savings. Would a certain amount of money be safe as the cash part of a stock account?
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