If by "doing his job" you mean trashing the dollar and driving up inflation then I agree completely with you.
Inflation isn't up that much. A cheap dollar actually benefits multinationals and the economy. All these strong dollar fools are gonna get burned this year like they did in 2006, and 2007. No one who is in power cares about the dollar. Even Kudlow has it wrong. He keeps talking about the need for a strong dollar, which is rubbish.
I agree. The builders were so caught up in the speculative ferver to supply homes, they truly threw risk management out the window. But they did not cause the bubble or the bursting of the bubble (at least the honest ones did not contribute to it through fake appraisals, no pulse lending, etc.) You can blame Greenspan , a complete loss of risk-control at banks, a used car-like mortgage broker mentality, AND idiotic people and institutions eager to assume mortgage-backed assets for that.
Why do you think we don't need a strong dollar? Internal to the US a dollar is a dollar and superficially doesn't affect that much. What it does affect is the price American's and American companies pay for foreign goods. Things like oil, computer parts, clothing, sporting goods, and everything else that is made over seas. If you don't think that everything we use, or that companies use going up has no effect then you would be dead wrong.
I think the markets get only a 50BP on March 18th, asking for more than that is being greedy. Actually, I think anything more than 25bp is greedy.....
That tune will change as soon as new lows are met before next week, lol. If that happens it will seem entirely reasonable for a .75 or why not a 1 point cut. After all the stock market wants to correct and well many don't want that just yet - or ever (ST). In fact why don't we just write it in stone that the entire S&P 500 stocks must go up say 0.5% ever day every one of them - period. Then this will be one big, happy world - we might not even need our meds! pS (if the rally fails that quick)
Make no mistake about it - it was Wall Street that caused this debacle. Yeah the same geniuses that think up great bottom-line enhancements like paying 3% per year to hold your money and charging 10% every time you take a $20 bill out of an ATM. Yeah, inserting those risky loans into securitised investments and pawning them off globally - with the ratings stamp of approval, has bit them more than we yet know. It must be really ugly to lose so much money - so fast and it truly is cascading out of control. But lets say globally $1 Trillion is almost certain to end up in the wastebasket. You hope and pray value will return - but doesn't soon or even after postponement. BUT all the theatrics allow for you to - since August - unwind with all the pumping of liquidity so you salvage say 1/4 of that. Then Big Ben and company let the big boys in on these induced moves so they can load up and leverage off each and every one - to collect another say 1/4. Then they save another 1/4 say from write-downs. . .and the rest the shareholders eat! In two to three years all that money lost will be made up through more think tank ingeniusness, but come on who is getting in the way of that tank and getting really hurt (you and me)? Must be nice to not have to pay for your mistakes pS
(Thomson Financial) - In two emergency moves to bolster market liquidity on Sunday night, the Federal Reserve cut its discount rate for direct loans to banks by 0.25 pct point to 3.25 pct and created a special lending facility at the New York Federal Reserve Bank for primary dealers in the securitization market.
It's been about 52 weeks now. Effective interest rate is at 0.20. Two-tenths of one percent. You can't make this stuff up.