Welcome to the United States of Zimbabwe! When in doubt, print! These nimrods on Capitol Hill are hell bent on driving the dollar to zero, bailouts galore, more checks in the mail, hey free money. Recessions are outlawed, Paulson printing like mad while stating the US has a strong dollar policy. Its not just taxpayers paying for this. Anyone holding dollars or dollar denominated assets are getting pile driven to help out bankers. Kill the dollar to save the bankers. What a plan.
If dollar keeps getting weaker against the euro, it will hugely affect European travel, which would really suck, since Europe is one of the greatest places on earth to vacation. Where else can you get beautiful places like this... http://flickr.com/photos/fotomagnum/2495772576/ http://flickr.com/photos/arthill/86837061/ http://flickr.com/photos/supriya/541331455/ http://flickr.com/photos/18659184@N08/1894766620/sizes/o/
PPI and CPI were the highest in 27 and 26 years, respectively, over the past 2 days. As soon as we work through a little more of this subprime nonsense we are going to jack rates right back up. If all works out like cherry pie for the U.S. Dollar it just might coincide with the Eurozone beginning to feel what we have been feeling for the past year. If that happens then say goodnight to the dollar bear. Thoughts?
I doubt the resolve of these pansies at the Fed who will not raise rates unless there is another asset bubble that is well-formed and begging to pop, aka tech in 1999/2000 and housing in 2005-2006. These pansies will keep rates artificially low, keep pumping out more dollars and spew more money to banks. That's their idea of a sustainable economy: cheap money. Inflation doesn't matter, the CPI is irrelevant and has been since Volcker. The Fed's next move will be a rate cut, count on it.
Why bother to cut rates when you simply increase money supply and velocity of money? The latter is the problem, by the way lately. How to get V to increase? You can do it publicly or do it privately. If you are running the show, its more subtle to do it privately.
What makes you so sure? Did you read any of the minutes released earlier? WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - Minutes from the most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting suggest that an increase in the federal funds rate might be closer at hand than many suspect, as the issue was openly debated at the June 24-25 meeting, and some FOMC members said that 'some firming in policy would be appropriate very soon.' 'With increased upside risks to inflation and inflation expectations, members believed that the next change in the stance of policy could well be an increase in the funds rate,' the minutes said.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the raising of the rates except pure happenstance. The market is already pricing in a rate hike in December.