US Federal Reserve

Authored by David Stockman via The Daily Reckoning,

The American economy has been mangled by decades of assault on capitalist prosperity.

Growth is now dying because the Federal Reserve’s hit on corporate America that has strip-mined its balance sheets to feed the halls of Wall Street. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into financial engineering (stock buybacks, M&A deals and leveraged recaps) while neglecting real investment and productivity in Flyover America.

Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

“The job of the central bank is to worry.”

– Alice Rivlin

“The central bank needs to be able to make policy without short-term political concerns.”

– Ben Bernanke

“… from the standpoint of the overall economy, my bottom line is we’re watching it closely but it appears to be contained.

– Ben Bernanke, repeatedly, in 2007

Via Global Macro Monitor,

Since the Fed began raising interest rates in December 2015,  financial market liquidity conditions have loosened considerably.   Recall our post,  Orwellian Monetary Policy,  which we wrote in May.

“Tightening is Easing”

 

With both the S&P, and global stock markets, closing last week at new all time highs, it is safe to say that any and all warnings about "froth", and perhaps a bubble in the market, as Deutsche Bank characterized it last week have been ignored. And yet, as Goldman's economist team writes over the weekend, the recent rise in warnings about "risk levels" and asset prices by Fed officials is concerning: "Fed officials have expressed greater concern about asset prices and financial stability risk recently, a change from their more relaxed view last fall.

Authored by EconomicPrism's MN Gordon, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,

Flowing Toward the Great Depression

All remaining doubts concerning the place the U.S. economy and its tangled web of international credits and debts is headed were clarified this week. On Monday, Mark Yusko, CIO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, told CNBC that: