Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
Simple Janet has attained a new milestone as a public menace with her speech to the Economic Club of New York. It amounted to yelling “stay” in a burning theater!
Key economic releases for the coming week include the ISM non-manufacturing report on Wednesday. There are several scheduled speeches from Fed officials this week. Fed Chair Yellen will take part in a discussion with former Fed Chairs on Thursday.
Monday, April 4
10:00 AM Factory orders, February (GS -2.1%, consensus -1.8%, last +1.6%)
The Fed has backed itself into a corner.
For seven years now we’ve been told the US is in a recovery. However, if this were the case, the Fed would have started raising rates years ago (likely in 2012). No other recovery on record saw the Fed maintaining ZIRP for so long.
There is simply no factually credible argument for why rates should be ZIRP if the economy is expanding. You cannot have claims of a “recovery” or expansion while ZIRP is in place. ZIRP is meant to be an emergency policy meant to pull the economy out of a severe recession, NOT a long-term program.
Submitted by Paul Brodsky via Macro-Allocation.com,
The USS Perpetual Growth was picking up speed, steaming over calm seas despite a growing chorus of capital market Cassandras fearing trouble under the surface and further out at sea.
“Full speed ahead” Skipper Yellen barked to her economates, unperturbed by ominous radar images or the uselessness of econometric expertise at the zero bound, unmindful of passenger dysentery because 95.1% of the ship’s births were full.
Submitted by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital,
It may be almost impossible to underestimate the gullibility of professional Fed watchers. At least Lucy van Pelt needed to place an actual football on the ground to fool poor Charlie Brown. But in today’s high stakes game of Federal Reserve mind reading, the Fed doesn’t even have to make a halfway convincing bluff to make the markets look foolish.