Forget about the Fed Funds Rate. Banks: A. Have less money to lend, as the massive writedowns harm their balance sheet. B. Have low confidence in another banks / financial institutions. With a lower Discount Rate, they may freely receive "loans" from the Fed.
Yes, they have done wonders. Specially considering the magnitude of the mortgage problem. The economy is struggling to survive, but if there were no rate cuts, we would be into a severe long lasting recession.
50bps ain't shit when you're at 2% FFR. The fed would just be cutting to rally the markets, and that's it. Lets go ahead and throw away all of the progress that the USD has made, and pump those bubblishous commodities markets back up so no one can afford anything again. That would be really smart. The Fed needs to take another approach.
i say a rate cut is due tomorrow...only 25% most likely. Usd has risen over the past while, so it won't hurt it...with oil down, the worry about inflation is lessened. we may have more downside in the markets, but i would not be surprised by the PPT coming to the resue tomorrow...afterall, the Fed has all the money.
50 bp is not enough. We need a 500bp rate cut with negative interest rates (e.g. pay people to borrow). That should help form another bubble fairly quickly. Unfortunately our economy is like a heroin addict. We are addicted to bubbles. It is far too painful to go cold turkey.
Why doesn't the fed let me borrow $200 billion at 2%? Why do only the people who f*cked everything up get the special treatment?
RATE CUTS ARE NOT GOING TO ANYTHING. Rate cuts will only make matters worse. Give up on begging for more rate cuts. You will see selling if there is a 50bp cut. Guess some people want to see a bounce back to 11k, give up, the Dow is headed below 10k.