5 Things to Watch at the Fed Meeting

Wall Street Journal ^ | 26 Jan 2016 | Ben Leubsdorf

[expat_panama]

The Federal Reserve this week will update its assessment of the U.S. economy and could take note of recent volatility in global financial markets. But any move or definite signal on interest rates is extremely unlikely. All the action will come in Wednesday’s policy statement, due out at 2 p.m. EST, since Chairwoman Janet Yellen isn’t scheduled to hold a press conference and officials won’t release updated economic projections until March. Here are five things to watch out of the two-day policy meeting that starts Tuesday.

1 Flexible Messaging

The Fed won’t raise its benchmark federal-funds rate on Wednesday...

2 Mentioning the Markets?

The Fed in December said it judged that risks to the outlook for the economy and labor market were “balanced” when “taking into account domestic and international developments.” It also dropped language that...

3 Growth Slowdown

The biggest changes to the policy statement will likely come in the first paragraph, which describes current economic conditions....

4 Expecting Inflation

The December policy statement said officials would “carefully monitor actual and expected progress” toward the Fed’s 2% annual inflation goal in judging when to raise rates again. Oil prices have dropped since then, and...

5 New Voters on Deck

The first policy meeting of 2016 means a new slate of regional bank presidents rotating into voting seats on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. One potential dissenter is Kansas City Fed President Esther George, a frequent dissenter during her last stint as a voter in 2013. Ms. George has kept a low profile in recent months, though she recently told the Kansas City Star that the Fed’s December rate increase was “late.” Of course, officials also could repeat December’s unanimous vote.

[expat_panama]

Yellen may actually believe she can act on behalf of the State and control the economy, but the rest of us know that the most her Fed Discount Rate can do is indirectly nudge inflation. She may or may not care that the Dec CPI showed deflation.

[expat_panama]

Mid-week and the plot thickens!   Supposedly the FOMC rate decision comes out today at 2 hours before markets close this aft. (2pm EST) --and it's an election year! 

Stocks saw another nice leap yesterday in mixed volume going into this morning's mixed outlook from the futures traders (either up or down) while gold&silver continue their slow/steady rise.  Add to the mix we also get 7:00 AM MBA Mortgage Index, 10:00 AM New Home Sales, and 10:30 AM Crude Inventories.

Maybe we can all get together at our Confused-but-Coping support group:

This Is A Year Where I Hope I'm Too Pessimistic - Byron Wien, Blackstone
A Revolution That Promises To Finish Off The Banks - Jeremy Warner, DT
Stock Bullishness Detectable In VIX Trading - John Kimelman, Barron's
Activists May Have Met Their Match: A Down Mkt. - Steven Davidoff, NYT
How the Fed Could Ruin Wall Street's Rebound - Anthony Mirhaydari, TFT
Hey Bernie, Oil Sales Fuel Scandinavian Handouts - Isaac Orr, Investor's
Note to Hillary: Clintonomics Was a Disaster - Robert Pollin, The Nation
Donald Trump's Lie About 'Buy America' - Michael Daly, The Daily Beast
Trump Has Tapped An Unhappy Middle Class - David Goldman, Pajamas
Protecting Global IP Rights Is An Econ. Imperative - May & Cooper, RCM
How Long Could the U.S. Go Without Electricity? - Barton Hinkle, Reason
Too Few Perceive Socialism's Dangers - Richard Rahn, Washington Times

[palmer]

From the Revolution article: "What the latest generation of digital disruption promises is to give depositors, borrowers, investors, and businesses looking for capital, more direct, more immediate and cheaper access to each other. This is not obviously good news for the traditional middle man, the banks, and the "exorbitant privilege" they enjoy at the heart of money creation."

I think it is a good suitably vague article. Nobody knows what the ultimate value exchange system is going to look like. But they could have eloborated a little more on the current state of the art. First that the block chain is distributed, somebody in Lithuania holds my money and I hold his. It all hangs together by everyone having a stake. Second, is the private key. You can prove ownwership of an asset or transfer ownership by signing with the private key. Everyone else has an address corresponding to the public key and they can verify the ownership or the transaction. Increasingly vendors will be identified by their possession of private keys. Digital assets can be bought and sold with transactions that simultaneously send the value in both directions. Zero clearing time and no third parties involved other than the universal brotherhood maintaining the blockchain. Eventually workmen will be paid for digital workmanship in the same way.

[Buckeye McFrog]

6) By running the debt up to record levels Obama has essentially shackled them at the wrists and ankles.
Wanna start the Mega Depression that will result in the
second Dark Age? Go right ahead, be my guest.