The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Meeting today marks 2015's inaugural meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy makers.
It's only been a month since the last meeting convened. But a lot has changed. It's following big stories in the way of global central, particularly from the European Central Bank.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Meeting today marks 2015's inaugural meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy makers.
It's only been a month since the last meeting convened. But a lot has changed. It's following big stories in the way of global central, particularly from the European Central Bank.
Esther George, Kansas City Fed President, is a hawk among doves. Here’s why she’s concerned about what’s ahead for the economy, thanks to QE. Read more...
Even as stocks and bonds continue to digest the concept of rising rates and the end of quantitative easing, there are still some great opportunities to land some big gains before any real trouble hits the markets.
QE may be fading away but that doesn't mean you can't profit...
When you pump massive amounts of money into an economy, as the U.S. Federal Reserve has done with QE1 through QE3, you're supposed to get some measure of inflation.
And yet despite some $2.3 trillion of quantitative easing since 2008, the core inflation rate has actually fallen over the past year from about 2.25% to 1.7% as of May.
It defies both common sense and monetary theory - or at least until you find out where all that QE3 money ended up.
To continue reading, please click here...
Legendary bond guru Bill Gross doesn't think too highly of the Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke's monetary policies.
"There comes a point when no matter how much blood is being pumped through the system as it is now, with zero-based policy rates and global quantitative easing programs, that the blood itself may become anemic, oxygen-starved, or even leukemic, with white blood cells destroying more productive red cell counterparts," Gross writes in his June investment outlook titled Wounded Heart.
Gross believes that QE, which he describes akin to a bad dose of chemotherapy, will end later this year but not because of a suddenly strengthening economy.
To continue reading, please click here...
Abolishing the Federal Reserve System might seem like a drastic idea, but not when you get the full story...
You see, Congress created the U.S. Federal Reserve System to restore public confidence, provide the banking system a source of liquidity that would prevent its collapse and protect the public against inflation.
A century later, the banking system is so big its risks dwarf the Fed's liquidity capacity, and what cost a buck back then now will set you back $21.
That's why we asked Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald to explain how the Federal Reserve System actually helps a country's economy.
Most importantly, we wanted to know if the United States - or any country - even needs the Fed anymore.
Just listen to Fitz-Gerald's answer in the following interview.
Nothing lasts forever. On Wednesday, Ben Bernanke threatened to take away the punch bowl. Shah Gilani explains the real story behind the move. Read more...
As usual, the markets were hanging on every word of the Bernanke testimony to Congress today (Wednesday).
By now, everyone should know better.
In the years that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been a member of the Fed - both as a member of the Board of Governors from 2002 to 2005, and in his two terms as chairman beginning in 2006 - he has been stupendously wrong time and time again.
Bernanke gave the markets what they wanted by hinting that his monetary easing policies won't change any time soon, pushing both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index up more than 0.5% in midday trading.
To continue reading, please click here...
Shah Gilani explains how the "extend and pretend" game became an institutionalized national treasure... Read more...
By the start of the 1960s, banking in America was in a state of flux. And as Shah Gilani explains it got ugly fast. Read more...
Before the housing market crash, economists warned that record low-interest and mortgage rates were fueling a housing bubble.
Unfortunately, those fears were both overlooked and underestimated.
Now, an advisory council to the U.S. Federal Reserve is warning the Fed that its record $85 billon-a-month stimulus and ultra-low interest rates are fueling new bubbles in student loans and farmland.
"Recent growth in student-loan debt, to nearly $1 trillion, now exceeds credit-card outstandings and has parallels to the housing crisis," according to minutes of the council's Feb. 8 meeting.
In addition, "agricultural land prices are veering further from what makes sense," the council said. "Members believe the run-up in agriculture land prices is a bubble resulting from persistently low interest rates."
To continue reading, please click here...
How did stodgy traditional banking morph into “casino banking” on a global scale? Shah Gilani explains the crooked path to where we are today… Read more...
Most Americans assume the U.S. Federal Reserve is a powerful government institution that seeks only to safeguard the dollar, boost the economy and drive employment higher.
That's what the Fed wants you to think.
The illusion of the Fed as a stabilizing, positive government entity has more or less existed since its creation under dubious circumstances in 1913.
"It not only avoided the word bank, it cleverly implied federal, or government, control over the establishment of a pool of reserves that would backstop the new banking 'system,'" said Money Morning Capital Wave Strategist Shah Gilani.
To continue reading, please click here...
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting concluded today (Wednesday) with one clear message to Washington: Thanks for the lousy economy.
Central bank members cited only "moderate" expansion in economic activity and a slow improvement in the stubbornly high unemployment level.
Acknowledging the economy is moving at an unhurried pace, the FOMC members pointed an accusing finger at Capitol Hill.
"Fiscal policy is restraining economic growth," the statement read. That remark was in direct reference to a deadlocked Congress, sequestration and its far-reaching impact.
A spate of fresh economic reports back that sentiment:
To continue reading, click here...
David Stockman, who served as budget director under President Ronald Reagan, is taking aim at a favorite target: the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Stockman minced no words in a Monday interview on FOX Business' "Varney & Co."
Speaking of the Fed, he told host Stuart Varney, "They have violated every rule of sound money that's ever existed. They've got the money market rates at zero. They have managed and rigged the entire yield curve so nothing is real out there. It's all trading against the Fed."
He said speculators will continue to invest as long as the Fed can hold the bond price up and the yield down "and keep shoveling out free overnight money."
"We're in a monetary fantasyland," Stockman said.
