Free Republic

Ben Bernanke continues to make history at the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the FOMC announced more quantitative easing at a rate of $85 billion a month for an extended period of time. The Bernanke Fed has also modified its guidance, noting its ultra-accommodative stance will remain in place until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5% and inflation projections remain no more than half a percentage point above 2% two years out. QE4 is here. Only a few months after announcing what had been dubbed QE3, an open-ended $40 billion a month program to buy up mortgage backed securities (MBS), the...

There are limits to how much aid the Federal Reserve can provide to the U.S. economy, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Wednesday as he urged politicians to tackle a year-end fiscal cliff that could derail the country’s gradual recovery. … The U.S. central bank announced it would keep buying $85 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed bonds a month until it saw a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market. Its balance sheet would increase to almost $4 trillion by the end of next year if it kept up that pace of purchases. … Critics of the central...

MORGAN STANLEY: We Could See QE4 By The End Of The Year Matthew BoeslerSep. 24, 2012, 9:51 AMMorgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist has a big report assessing the impact of QE on the stock market today. In a note to clients this morning entitled QE3 – More Is Required, Parker argues that "QE3 will likely be insufficient to significantly boost equity markets and we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Fed dramatically augment this program (i.e., QE4) before year-end, particularly if economic and corporate news continue to deteriorate as they have over the past few weeks." Parker...

I was reading about bankruptcy, county, state, ... because that’s where I believe many locations are headed. I then read an article about personal bankruptcy. One of the things the lawyer was recommending in the article was to load up on unsecure debt. I consider it fraud to load up debt knowing that someone is getting ready or will declare bankruptcy. I believe the courts hold that view also. That’s when I had an epiphany . The government knows damn well they can’t pay all this debt off and won't even try. The deficit in February of this year alone...

Earlier today, the White House released a budget proposal that included trimming the mortgage interest deduction for taxpayers in the top income tax brackets. This is the first step in eliminating what many economists view as an expensive and inefficient housing subsidy. Unfortunately, many of the critics of the mortgage interest deduction focus on its immediate costs. If it were eliminated, it might bring in more than $2 trillion of new revenue for the government or—as I proposed this morning—allow up to $2 trillion of new tax cuts for the American people. Actually, I think getting rid of the housing...