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David Stockman: Thanks to the Fed, We're in "Monetary Fantasyland"

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning -

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.

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What You Absolutely Need to Know About Money (Part Three)

By , Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning • @ShahGilani_TW -

From Venetian goldsmiths issuing paper receipts, to America's first and second central banks - the Bank of North America in 1781, and the First Bank of the United States in 1791 - we arrive at the year 1836.

Chapter Two, on the beginnings of central banking, ended with: "The Second Bank (of the United States, chartered in 1817) was bitterly opposed by President Andrew Jackson, who made the existence of the Bank, and its power over the people, a central issue in his campaign... Jackson won, and in 1836 the Second Bank of the United States' charter expired, along with another central banking experiment."

So, why did Andrew Jackson, after a successful first term as President of the United States, bet a second term on breaking up the huge, monumentally successful bank?

Why, indeed.

John Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, lays bare the General's very Jeffersonian fear of the power and influence of banking interests.

Jackson exercised his veto power when a bill for the Bank's recharter passed the Senate and (narrowly) the House, after a former recharter opponent, Samuel Pierce Carson, "had obtained a loan of $20,000 from the Bank, and had changed his opinion."

Jackson eventually overcame the Bank's arsenal of loans and favors by appealing directly to the voters.

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The Fed Delivers Unmistakable Message After Two-Day Meeting

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

The Fed delivered a clear message Wednesday after its two-day meeting: Don't expect the easy monetary policies to end anytime soon.

The Central Bank's official policy statement, the first of 2013, said interest rates would remain near zero, at ¼%, and the aggressive $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program would continue for a "considerable time."

Word of the Fed's decision came just hours after a Commerce Department report showed gross domestic product had declined for the first time since the Great Recession, slipping 0.1% in the fourth quarter.

The GDP's first decline in 3 1/2 years had led economists to predict the Fed would stick to its easy money policies for the time being.

"There is no hint that they are giving any thought of backing off current policy and their current stance," Wells Fargo's senior economist Mark Vitner told Bloomberg.

"Growth has slowed and inflation is running below expectations. To the extent the Fed's decisions are data dependent, all the relevant data suggest they should continue to ease."

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