Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I am FED up, are you?

Here is an excerpt from this morning's Quick Takes Pro (yes, I am peddling it. Have you taken a free trial yet?):
It all boils down to "will he or won’t he?" Will there be QE3 or not? No wonder investors are out of the market as there is no way to probe the mind of a mad man.

Whoa! Did we just say that? Well, let's refer back to Einstein's definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The Fed still thinks they have bullets left to "fix" the economy. It doesn't. In fact, it never did. The fix is not to fix it.  But that is a much longer discussion.

This morning, I heard a strategist I do respect talking about what the Fed can and cannot do. First, she said there is diminishing returns with any stimulus. I agree.

But when asked what the Fed can actually do she said they would not focus on Treasuries but instead look at mortgages. This would help a recovering industry by lowering mortgage rates.

 
Uh, excuse me. Aren't mortgage rates at all-time lows already?

I am truly fed up with all of this bravado. The Fed cannot fix the economy. If you want to the runner to run faster, stop giving him more weights (regulations and laws) to carry.

Meddling with the free market is In-saaaane!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Kind of funny that you included a picture of Crazy Eddie while condemning meddling with the free market. For those too young to remember, Crazy Eddie pulled off one of the biggest scams of all time and got his company listed on the stock exchange despite warehouses of empty boxes disguised as inventory. One of his best sources of income was sales tax which of course went right into his pocket. I'm not so sure that businesses and people don't need a little meddling by the government. Those of us on salary don't have much choice but the rest, oh boy!