Where We Are Today: Interest Rates ‘Too High,’ Double Dip on Deck, the Failure of Economics
by ilene - July 5th, 2010 5:14 pm
Key point: "Reform is the only solution that is sustainable. Austerity or stimulus without reform are worse than useless." I post many articles discussing virtues and vices of more stimulus vs. the benefits and evils of austerity measures. But I think Jesse has it precisely correct. – Ilene
Where We Are Today: Interest Rates ‘Too High,’ Double Dip on Deck, the Failure of Economics
Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff is a daily read of mine. His most recent breakfast message does a remarkably concise job of summarizing the US financial markets.
The reason for the gold market rally is obvious; declining production in the face of record monetization and increasing demand. The same financial engineers in the central banks that ruined the economy had been suppressing the price of gold through managed sales for almost thirty years in a desperate reaction to the Nixon assault on Bretton Woods in 1971. And now we see the fruits of their long contrivance, and its inevitable failure. The world will have to develop a replacement to this incredible farce we call globalization and world trade based on arbitrary and easily manipulated values.
At the same time, Dave points out that according to the Taylor Rule the Fed is overly tight, even with ZIRP! We have spoken about this in the past, in making a distinction between quantitative and qualitative easing. This also speaks to the massive deformity which the US economy had become under first Greenspan and then Bernanke, and a financial sector turned outsized predator, with little connection to real market discipline of supply and demand thanks in large part to the proliferation of derivatives.
Ben could adjust somewhat this with the interest payments on reserves which the Fed is now paying. I suspect at some point he will, even taking them negative if necessary. But the Fed’s first priority is the insolvent Wall Street firms, and the continued charade that allows them to still pay outrageous bonuses while the nations suffers between the hammer of unemployment and the anvil of a toxic disaster in the Gulf and the collapse of its local economies. The first policy failure was in not nationalizing the insolvent US banks like Goldman and liquidating them. The second policy error is the failure to engage in serious financial reform, severely curtailing the derivatives market to something more resembling a well…
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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.