Courtesy of Pam Martens.
GDPNow From Atlanta Fed as of October 27, 2015
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve will release its statement today at 2 p.m. (ET). It is widely expected that the Fed will be holding rates steady. The Fed has been signaling for more than a year that the U.S. economy is strong enough for it to raise interest rates gradually. Based on comments from various Fed speakers, many had expected the rate hike to come in September.
Wall Street on Parade has taken a skeptical view of the Fed’s happy talk about the economy – preferring to look at the cold, hard data coming from inside and outside the Fed. It now seems quite plausible that the Fed’s agenda all along has been to talk up the U.S. dollar to prevent capital flight while waving pom-poms to boost confidence and spur consumer spending.
Corporate media seems sycophantically willing to regurgitate the Fed’s optimistic prognostications on the U.S. economy, month after month, quarter after quarter. There have been a few courageous exceptions. On February 10, Steve Ricchiuto, Chief U.S. Economist at Mizuho Securities USA, had this to say on CNBC, the cable business channel:
“…there’s also this wrong concept that I keep hearing over and over again in the financial press about this acceleration in economic growth. That isn’t happening. Last month we had a horrible retail sales number. We had a horrible durable goods number. We’re likely to have a very disappointing retail sales number coming forward. This month we’ve had a strong payroll number – we say everything’s great. It’s not great. It’s running where it’s been. It’s been the same thing for the last five years. There’s no improvement in the economy.”
The St. Louis Fed’s GDP chart below shows just how correct Ricchiuto is. Despite unprecedented fiscal stimulus and three doses of quantitative easing since the 2008 financial crash, the U.S. is still unable to sustain meaningful economic momentum.
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