Paul Farrell On The One Thing Buffett, Gross, Grantham, Faber, And Stiglitz All Agree On: “Bernanke Plan A Disaster”
by ilene - November 2nd, 2010 2:50 pm
Paul Farrell On The One Thing Buffett, Gross, Grantham, Faber, And Stiglitz All Agree On: "Bernanke Plan A Disaster"
Courtesy of Zero Hedge
By now it is more than obvious except to a few economists (yes, we realize this is a NC-17 term) that QE2 will be an absolute and unmitigated disaster, which will likely kill the dollar, send risk assets vertical (at least as a knee jerk reaction), and result in a surge in inflation even as deflation on leveraged purchases continues to ravage Bernanke’s feudal fiefdom. So all the rational, and very much powerless, observers can do is sit back and be amused as the kleptogarchy with each passing day brings this country to final economic and social ruin. Oddly enough, as Paul Farrell highlights, the list of objectors has grown from just fringe blogs (which have been on Bernanke’s case for almost two years), to such names as Buffett, Gross, Grantham, Faber and Stiglitz. And that the opinion of all these respected (for the most part) investors is broadly ignored demonstrates just how unwavering is the iron grip on America’s by its economist overlords. Which brings us back to the amusement part. Here are Farrell’s always witty views on the object which very soon 99% of American society will demand be put into exile: the genocidal Ph.D. holders of the Marriner Eccles building.
From Paul Farrell’s latest: Sell bonds now, Fed’s QE2 is doomed to fail.
Warning, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s foolish gamble to stimulate the economy will backfire, triggering a new double-dip recession. Bernanke is “medding” too much in the economy, say Marc Faber, Bill Gross, Jeremy Grantham, Joseph Stiglitz and others.
The Fed is making the same kind of mistakes Japan made that resulted in its 20-year recession. The Washington Post says Larry Mayer, a former Fed governor, estimates that to work it would take QE2 bond purchases of “more than $5 trillion …10 times what analysts are expecting.”
Bernanke’s plan is designed to fail. And, unfortunately, that will make life far more dangerous for American investors, consumers, taxpayers and voters.
“I’m ultrabearish on everything, but I believe you’ll be better off owning shares than government bonds,” said Hong Kong economist Marc Faber at a recent forum in Seoul. He sees a repeat of dot-com-bubble insanity today. Faber publishes the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.
And Warren Buffett agrees,
…
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Bernanke Gets His Pink Slip
by ilene - November 1st, 2010 12:59 pm
Bernanke Gets His Pink Slip
Courtesy of MIKE WHITNEY, originally published at CounterPunch
Question: What is the difference between a full-blown Depression and an excruciatingly "slow recovery"?
Answer--Inventories and a bit of fiscal stimulus.
On Friday, The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that 3rd Quarter GDP rose by 2% meeting most analysts expectations. The real story, however, is hidden in the data. Inventories added 1.44 percentage points to the 3Q real GDP, which means that--absent the boost to existing stockpiles-- GDP would be well-below 1%. If it wasn’t for Obama’s fiscal stimulus (ARRA), the economy would be sliding back into recession.
Improvements in consumer spending were too meager to indicate a "rebound", and residential investment dropped off sharply following the expiration of the firsttime homebuyer credit. The economy is in a coma and desperately needs more government support. But if Tuesday’s midterm elections turn out according to predictions--and the GOP retakes the House of Representatives--there won’t be any more stimulus. Instead, the economy will sputter along at a snail’s pace until festering bank woes (this time, the foreclosure crisis) trigger another contraction.
There’s no doubt now, that the Fed’s efforts to engineer a sustained recovery have failed. The fact that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is planning to resume his dubious Quantitative Easing (QE) program is an admission of failure. That said, I expect the Fed to “go large” on November 3, and purchase another $1.2 trillion of long-term Treasuries adding roughly $100 billion per month to the money supply. That should placate Wall Street and keep stock markets sufficiently “bubbly” for the foreseeable future. After 12 months of QE, unemployment will still be stuck at 10%, the output gap will have narrowed only slightly, and confidence in the Fed will have plunged to historic lows. Monetarism alone cannot fix the economy.
The fiscal remedies for recession are well known and have effectively implemented with great success for over a half century. QE is a pointless detour into uncharted waters. It is like treating a hangover with brain surgery when the bottle of aspirin sets idle on the bedstand. Why bother?
Bernanke is convinced that pouring money into the system will produce the results he wants. This is how the Fed chair pays homage to the great monetarist icon, Milton Friedman. Friedman had unwavering faith in the power of money. Here’s what he…
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The Last Chapter
by ilene - September 4th, 2010 7:18 pm
The Last Chapter
Courtesy of John Mauldin at Thoughts From The Frontline
The Last Chapter
Let’s Look at the Rules
Six Impossible Things
Killing the Goose
Home and Then Europe
This week you will get a kind of preview as this week’s letter. I am desperately trying to finish the first draft of my book and am one chapter away from having that draft. I have promised my editor (Debra Englander) that she would see a rough draft next week, and the final version will be delivered on the last day of September. More on that process for those interested at the end of the letter. But this week’s letter will be part of what will probably be the 4th or 5th chapter, where we look at the rules of economics.
There is just so little writing time left that I have to focus on that book for a little bit. I am writing this book with co-author Jonathan Tepper of Variant Perception (who is based in London), a young and very gifted Rhodes scholar with a talent for economic analysis and writing. We each write the first draft of a chapter and then go back and forth until the chapter has been much improved. Alas, gentle reader, you will only get my first draft. You will have to wait for the book to get the new, improved version. But this is the last one I have to write. And Jonathan has done all his initial chapters. We are on the home stretch.
But first, my partners at Altegris Investments have written a White Paper entitled "The New Normal: Implications for Hedge Fund Investing." It is a very instructive read. If you are in the US and have already signed up for my Accredited Investor letter, you should already have been sent a link or a copy. If not, and you are an accredited investor (basically net worth of $1.5 million or more) and would like to see the paper, or are interested in learning more about how hedge funds, commodity funds, and other absolute-return strategies might fit into your investment portfolio, I suggest you click on www.accreditedinvestor.ws and fill out the form, and a professional will get back to you. And if you live outside the US and are interested, I have partners around the world who can work with…
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DEEP THOUGHTS FROM ALBERT EDWARDS
by ilene - September 11th, 2009 3:30 am
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MUST READ: DEEP THOUGHTS FROM ALBERT EDWARDS
Deep Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Deep thoughts here from SocGen’s Albert Edwards:
It’s almost as if the biggest credit bubble in history never occurred. Investors are increasingly convinced that a sustainable global recovery is emerging out of the wreckage. All praise to the central bankers (and Gordon Brown) for saving the world! I’m waiting till someone writes about the return of The Great Moderation and suggests Ben Bernanke is the new Maestro. Then I’ll know the lunatics have taken over the madhouse…..yet again!
When you look at the ever shrinking rate of bank lending to the private sector around the world it is clear as the nose on my face that the global economy is still very, very sick. As we have repeatedly highlighted, one key lesson from Japanese boom and bust is that banks are not the problem. Bankers bonuses are not even the problem. The pigmies that populate the political and monetary elites prefer to genuflect to the court of public opinion in a pathetic attempt to deflect blame from their own gross and unforgivable incompetence. It is the monetary and regulatory authorities that are responsible for this mess. It is not obvious in retrospect. It was obvious from the very start.
The problem is that after the boom there will be a bust. The issue now is one of deleveraging and the deflation that is starting to unfold. The problem is that Bernanke is a slave to Milton Friedman’s view of the Great Depression (at Friedman’s 90th birthday Bernanke promised that the Fed would never allow another Great Depression to occur). The Australian economist Steve Keen’s observation that “Bernanke’s dilemma is that he is living in a Minskian world while perceiving it though Friedmanite eyes explains his actions to date. It also explains why he will fail.
Source: FT & SocGen
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.