Yellen says inflation and interest rates are "too low" Straight from the Bizzaro World comes Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, wooing inflation and the higher interest rates that would attend it.…
From NFTRH 477: Bring on FOMC! Aside from providing a potential exclamation point to the gold sector correction, this week’s (Dec. 13th) rate hike will serve as Janet Yellen’s last…
Where once Alan Greenspan was vilified for dropping interest rates too low for too long and thereby inflating a credit bubble (before his bouncing baby bubble forced him to try…
Why the tough talk out of one side of her mouth and 'other policy tools' language out of the other (ref. Yellen Lays Out Tools... )? Oh, I don't know. …
[edit] Ah, she just mentioned the high "debt to GDP levels" in the Q&A. Thank you sir! Point made. She just jawboned QE 4, which is why I decided to…
Yesterday we reviewed the Scariest Chart in the World, an overly sensational tongue in cheek title for a chart that has bearish historical implications for the S&P 500. Here it…
So am I and so are most decent people. So bravo Janet, you are a decent person. You are greatly concerned about inequality in this richest nation on earth.
Yellen says she’s ‘greatly’ concerned by rising inequality
Now let’s work the details…
“It is no secret that the past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority,” Yellen said in a speech to a conference on inequality sponsored by the Boston Fed.
It is also no secret that manipulating short-term interest rates toward zero kills regular peoples’ ability to save. It creates and furthers a wealthy investor class directly at the expense of the public, who have traditionally been savers.
Everyone expects Janet Yellen to be a rolling over, inflationist stooge just like they did Ben Bernanke. Bernanke came on board after Alan Greenspan had taken the Fed Funds rate up to around 5% if I remember correctly. Inflationists and gold bugs thought they had it in the bag when ‘Helicopter Ben’ assumed control.
Indeed, Bernanke did what he was supposed to do (per the ‘Helicopter ‘Ben’ script) as systemic stresses began to gather in 2007, addressing that pesky Funds rate, culminating in December, 2008’s official ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). Here again is the chart showing the S&P 500’s ‘Hump #3’ attended by this most beneficial monetary policy.
As noted again and again, the much trumpeted ‘taper’ of QE is not only not a negative for the economy, we have made a strong case that its mechanics are actually a positive, in the near term at least. But putting ZIRP on the table would be a whole different ball of wax.