As if The Federal Reserve's credibility was not already circling the drain faster than Kanye West's, San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams just dropped the ultimate tape-bomb of ignorance and flip-flopping...
In January, as the market begain to accelerate to the downside, a confident Fed explains why it is "not too concerned" about China's collapse: "We've built in a weakening path for China. I don't see that as a significant risk to the forecast" for the U.S. economy...China doesn't affect the US market that much at all."
While he fell one short of using the 'c' word, the implicit statement was that China risk was "contained," and would not lead to any pain in the US.
And then, less than 3 months later, Williams utters the following painfully hypocritical comments:"We have a domestic mandate...but that said, we understand that we're in a global economy so what happens in Brazil or China has a huge impact on the U.S. in terms of our inflation and employment goals."
We can only imagine that The Fed members have simply given up on any sense of credibility, instead desperately reaching for any excuse (around the world) not to hike rates.
So to sum up, The Fed "wasn't concerned" about China's economic collapse... until suddenly it's impact is "huge."
As a reminder, these are the unelected career economists and central planners that are entrusted - by the banks - to run the world.
h/t @VexMark