Fisher

Some stunning remarks from Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher: " Our duty is most distinctly not to monetize?or even
be perceived as monetizing?the debt of fiscally imprudent government.
Throughout the history of nations, monetizing the budgetary excesses of
governments has proven to be a direct path to economic perdition.
Having already peeked inside that door, I feel strongly that we must
now shut it, lock it and throw away the key." Well, thanks Dick. You are only $2.6 trillion dollars late.

From Dow Jones: "An inflation-only mandate would be more appropriate for the U.S.
Federal Reserve than its current dual goal of managing price stability
and facilitating job creation, U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
President Richard Fisher said Friday. "I do believe that the full employment mandate puts us on a slippery
political slope," Fisher said in a panel discussion in Brussels.
"Personally, I would prefer to have a single mandate." Somehow we doubt this statement was preapproved by your friendly Ministry of Truth big brother.

More purposeful confusion out of the Fed this morning after Fed's Fisher just hit the tape saying he may vote to end QE2 before the June deadline, even as Lockhart says QE3 is possible if the US faces another downturn. The purpose of all this constant conflicting disinformation is to keep market participants on edge as the marginal economic improvement is finally starting to reverse as Goldman's Jan Hatzius insinuated last night. In other words, should the Libyan conflict not be resolved for another few weeks, QE3 is pretty much guaranteed.

While "hope" has certainly been the primary investment thesis in the stock market for the past twp years, little did we realize that it was the key decision-making input variable at the Federal Reserve. What else is there to say: the central planners are now officially using the f[o|a]rce.

The "good money printer - bad money printer" routine is starting to get old. Dallas Fed's Fisher joins Richmond's (non-voting) Lacker in saying no more QE. Earlier today, the Dallas Fed president was heard saying anathema things like: "Very eary of further expansion of Fed's Balance Sheet", "Fed is Pushing the Envelope with Asset Purchases" and concludes that we would "probably" dissent in any vote for further QE. Um, great. You have vote Dick, use it. Same goes for Plosser and all the other wannabe Hoenigs. Oh yeah, also while you are at it, please explain just who will be buying the $4 trillion in debt to be issued in the next two years (ref: $32 Billion 3 Year Auction Prices At 1.349% As Foreign Bid Plunges And Fed Indirectly Pockets 62% Of Issue).

Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher, who despite his recent quite vocal disagreement with Fed policies (Dallas Fed's Fisher Stunner: Admits Worries Fed Has Created Nothing But Bubbles), yet who conveniently forgot to dissent with the decision to continue the status quo at the latest FOMC committee, thereby making the current batch of hawks even more useless than the previous one (at least back then Hoenig had the guts to put his dissent where his mouth was) is once more on the tape, and following last week's announcement by the Dallas Fed president, was once again caught stating that he will not support further Fed accommodation and he will dissent with further QE decisions. At this point it is mostly theatrics. Should there truly be more QE, as Ben Bernanke implied may be the case during last week's Press meeting, then watch oil, commodities and those pesky precious metals quickly ground any such ambitions.

Today's must watch clip comes from Mark Fisher. Key highlights: "QE2 can't end right. Worthless paper after endless paper.... What's good for the equity markets is not necessarily good for the economy. The equity markets are not going to create jobs. If you have a paper bag full of money are you going to go out and hire workers and take risk with healthcare and all these other regulatory restrictions? No, you are going to go ahead and buy high yield, you will buy equities, you will buy risk assets. The fallacy in the whole thing is that you are not going to go ahead and create jobs just by pushing up the market by 20%, 15%. In fact, to some degree by pushing up commodity price to levels that are going to be obscene, which is what is going to happen, you are hurting everybody in mainstream America... If you have all this money coming into the system, and this money stays in the equity and commodity markets, when at some point you take this money out of the system, where is this money going to come out of? Parabolic moves have Parabolic corrections. This is going to end bad. It is not a matter of if, just a matter of when. This is going to be the ultimate bubble, this is going to make 2000 look like a cakewalk. This is going to be the bubble of all bubbles."

The war of words continues, this time with Dallas Fed's Fisher. More quotes from the fourth spoke in the Kocherlakota, Plosser, Hoenig, hawk sanity quadrangle. In his just released speech we read this stunner: "In my darkest moments,
I have begun to wonder if the monetary accommodation we have already
engineered might even be working in the wrong places." Aside from adding Fisher to the Shirakawa, Hildebrand suicide watch, it is notable that the Fed is finally doubting the actions of the Fed, and realizing it is creating neither employment, nor moderate inflation, but just bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. And here is why Fisher may soon be looking to resign: "A great many baby boomers
or older cohorts who played by the rules, saved their money and
migrated over time, as prudent investment counselors advise, to short-
to intermediate-dated, fixed-income instruments are earning extremely
low nominal and real returns on their savings. Further reductions in
rates earned on savings will hardly endear the Fed to this portion of
the population." Hardly indeed. And next time it won't be the Pentagon.

In a speech before the SW Graduate School of Banking, Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher comes out swinging, blasting his boss Ben Bernanke and his policy of globalized moral hazard: "Let me make my sentiments clear: It is my view that, by propping up deeply troubled big banks, authorities have eroded market discipline in the financial system. It is not difficult to see where this dynamic leads—to more pronounced financial cycles and repeated crises." And just in case listeners missed the point, he followed up: "Just this morning, the Washington Post summarized the impasse that inevitably blocks treatment of the TBTF pathology. In an article on preparation for this weekend’s Group of 20 talks on bank reform, it was noted that “some” participants “remain hesitant to lean too hard on banks they consider vital to their national economies.” This hesitancy only perpetuates the problem: The longer authorities delay the process, the more engrained behemoth financial institutions become; the more engrained they become, the less extricable they are. And so the debilitating disease of TBTF spreads. What appears “vital” becomes “viral” and grows ever more threatening to financial stability and economic stability."

It appears the Fed meeting on the Discount Rate that was held last week behind closed doors is about to yield results. In a Q&A with reporters following a luncheon sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute, Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher said that "his Bank's board of directors recently requested an increase
in the primary credit rate. The request was made out of a
desire "to normalize" the spread. "We would like to get it back to 100"
basis points."According to Market News, Fisher "also told reporters he opposes the Federal Open Market
Committee's continual assertions that it expects the federal funds rate
to stay 'exceptionally low ... for an extended period.'"Furthermore, when discussing the steepness of the curve, Fisher hit the nail on the head: the curve is record steep due to a "limping" economic recovery (at record underemployment and an inventory restocking based GDP boost, we wait with baited breath to see just where this recovery is), but mostly due to record treasury supply. And because auctions have not busted yet, banks, whose PDs bid for these very auctions, especially on the short end, help to create a record steep curve, thus allowing them to borrow at zero costs and lend (assuming there is anyone out there who actually wants to borrow) at whatever rates they choose, thus guaranteeing themselves record profits for so long as the US continues to issue an average of $10 billion in debt a day! If you see this as a perverted Catch 22, you are not alone. The only one getting raped in all of this, has always been, and continues to be, the US middle class. At some point, the debasement to the dollar which all this printing results in, will catch up with consumers, but by then all the wealth in NPV terms will have long been transferred to the banks, their shareholders, and their managements.

More tough talk from a Fed Governor. The problem with talking tough is if you do not back it up with action you look soft. If that is the way this plays out the weak link is still the dollar. If they raise rates as they say they will it is going to dramatically increase the cost of funding the mega-trillions of short term debt that Geithner has floated on our behalf.

UK faces quite considerable headwinds
UK banking system not in strong position to lend
UK recession put downward pressure on inflation
BOE has bought GBP 96 billion of assets in APF
"If you withdraw stimulus too quickly face risk of renewed downturn"

UK faces quite considerable headwinds
UK banking system not in strong position to lend
UK recession put downward pressure on inflation
BOE has bought GBP 96 billion of assets in APF
"If you withdraw stimulus too quickly face risk of renewed downturn"
"Obvious first step to tighten policy is to raise bank rate, not on verge of doing this"
"More concerned about below target inflation than deflation"
"We do need more powers to control the growth of financial sector"