Janet Yellen

• Yellen to defend Fed's ultra-easy monetary policy (Reuters)
• Japan growth slows on global weakness (WSJ)
• Eurozone third-quarter growth falters (FT)
• Fed Debates Its Low-Rate Peg (Hilsenrath)
• Yellen: Economy Still Needs Fed Aid (WSJ)
• ‘Obamacare’ launch fiasco rouses sceptics (FT)
• DoubleLine's Gundlach says U.S. equities 'only game in town' (Reuters)
• Indian Inflation Exceeding Estimates Adds Rate-Rise Pressure (BBG)
• HUD Said to Fail in Bid to Sell $450 Million of Mortgages (BBG)
• Boeing machinists reject labor deal on 777X by 67 percent (Reuters)

Japan growth cut in half, Europe growth cut by more than half, but none of that matters: today it will be all about the coronation of QEeen Yellen, who testifies before the Senate Banking Committee at 10am. Not even Japanese finance minister Aso's return to outright currency intervention warnings (in addition to the BOJ's QE monetary base dilution), when he said that Japan must always be ready to send signal to markets to curb excessive and one sided FX moves and it is important that Japan has intervention as FX policy option, which sent the USDJPY back up to 100 for the first time since September 11 made much of an impact on futures trading which after surging early in the session following the release of Yellen's prepared remarks, have now "tapered" virtually all gains. Certainly, the follow up from Europe doing the same and also warning it too may engage in QE, has been lost. Which is odd considering the entire developed world is now on the verge of engaging in the most furious open monetization of virtually everything in history.

Hunting season is off to a good start this week, and I’m not just talking about deer hunting. It seems that former Fed officials declared open season on their ex-colleagues. First, Andrew Huszar, who once ran the Fed’s mortgage buying operation, let loose in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Huszar apologized to all Americans for his role in the toxic QE programs. And then today, the WSJ struck again, this time with an op-ed by former FOMC Governor Kevin Warsh. Warsh is a former Morgan Stanley investment banker whose 2006 to 2011 stint on the FOMC spanned the end of the housing boom and the first few years of “unconventional” policy measures. After such a solid grounding in the ways of the Fed and Wall Street, he recently morphed into a critic of the status quo. His criticisms are welcome and we believe accurate, but they’re also oh so carefully expressed. They’re written with the polite wording and between-the-lines meanings that you might expect from such an establishment figure. He seems to be holding back. So, what does he really want to say?

Just as the market was expecting, and may have been leaked once again, Janet didn't let anyone down. Today's exuberance in stocks matched only by confirmation that Janet Yellen has gained her helicopter pilot's license and is ready to take over the reigns of printer-in-chief from Bernanke. Key extracts:  "Unemployment is down from a peak of 10 percent, but at 7.3 percent in October, it is still too high, reflecting a labor market and economy performing far short of their potential...  I believe the Federal Reserve has made significant progress toward its goals but has more work to do." In short: Get to work Mr. Chairwoman, and allow Congress to keep doing more of what they have been doing under the Fed's central planning: nothing.

Self-directed retirement schemes with a gold and/or precious metals allocation are a powerful retirement planning tool and considering the continuing financial malaise affecting the U.S., they will continue to offer a genuine long-term savings option.

Q3 earnings for financials show that the interest rate risk created by the Fed after years of zero rates is very real indeed

• Desperate Philippine typhoon survivors loot, dig up water pipes (Reuters)
• Fading Japanese market momentum frustrates investors (FT)
• China's meager aid to the Philippines could dent its image (Reuters)
• Headline du jour: Granted 'decisive' role, Chinese markets decide to slide (Reuters)
• Central Banks Risk Asset Bubbles in Battle With Deflation Danger (BBG)
• Navy Ship Plan Faces Pentagon Budget Cutters (WSJ)
• Investors pitch to take over much of Fannie and Freddie (FT)
• To expand Khamenei’s grip on the economy, Iran stretched its laws (Reuters)
• Short sellers bet that gunmaker shares are no long shot (FT)
• Deflation threat in Europe may prompt investment rethink (Reuters)

"I can only say: I'm sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing.... We were working feverishly to preserve the impression that the Fed knew what it was doing...  The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time....  Having racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in opaque Fed subsidies, U.S. banks have seen their collective stock price triple since March 2009. The biggest ones have only become more of a cartel: 0.2% of them now control more than 70% of the U.S. bank assets.  As for the rest of America, good luck..... The implication is that the Fed is dutifully compensating for the rest of Washington's dysfunction. But the Fed is at the center of that dysfunction. Case in point: It has allowed QE to become Wall Street's new "too big to fail" policy."

With better US labor market data, the key event in the upcoming week could well be the Yellen nomination hearing in the Senate Banking Committee. Yellen will likely deliver brief prepared remarks followed by questions from members of the committee. Yellen is expected to be relatively circumspect in discussing potential future Federal Reserve policy decisions in the hearings. Nonetheless, the testimony may help clarify her views on monetary policy and the current state of the economy. Yellen has not spoken publicly on either of these topics since the spring of this year. In addition to the nomination hearing, there will be a series of Fed speeches again, including one by Chairman Bernanke.

What are the odds that the long-term trend towards lower participation is going to turn around soon? I would say, "Not high".

Most market watchers expect that Janet Yellen will grapple with two major tasks once she takes the helm at the Federal Reserve in 2014: deciding on the appropriate timing and intensity of the Fed's quantitative easing taper strategy, and unwinding the Fed's enormous $4 trillion balance sheet (without creating huge losses in the value of its portfolio). In reality both assignments are far more difficult than just about anyone understands or admits.

The wholesale changes at the Fed's Board of Governors in the period ahead are generally under-appreciated by market observers.  

• Fed Anxiety Rises as QE Raises Risk of Loss With Political Cost (BBG)
• Iran Nuclear Deal Expected as Early as Friday (WSJ)
• Israel rejects mooted interim Iran nuclear deal, Kerry heads to talks (Reuters)
• JPMorgan Banker Backed $200 Million Madoff Loan in 2008 (BBG)
• Unleashing the food nazis - FDA Says Trans Fats Aren't Safe in Food (WSJ)
• Draghi Aggression Shows Pledges Backed by Rate Surprise (BBG)
• S&P Cuts France's Credit Rating by One Notch to Double-A (WSJ)
• S&P criticises France’s high tax rates for stifling growth (FT)
• Payroll Gains in U.S. Probably Cooled Amid Government Shutdown (BBG)

David Stockman has never been shy of expressing his true feelings (about Bernanke's "Born Again Jobs Scam", Calamity Janet Yellen, Obamacare's resentment-encouraging rollout, and the entire Keynesian state wreck ahead). But this time, he aims his acerbic ire at the "markets." During a brief interview on FOX Business, the author of The Age of Deformation exclaimed "There’s no one in the stock market today except drugged-up day-traders and robots... This is utterly irrational." The blame (and benefactors) are clear, he blasts, "how could someone in their right mind believe that you can have interest rates... at zero for nine years?... That is the greatest gift to the speculators, to the 1%, to the leveraged traders, to the carry trade ever imagined!" He concludes, "we're almost on the edge of another explosion at the present time."

When the U.S. economy dipped into an inflationary recession in 1969, the Keynesian paradigm could not explain that phenomenon. Given the fact that both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations (not to mention Congress) have followed the Keynesian playbook, the sorry results should be enough to discredit Keynesianism, this time for good. Either a theory explains and predicts phenomena or it does not, and it should be clear that Keynesian theory has failed, but, alas, it seems that the Keynesian paradigm is more influential than ever. Here is a paradigm that claims there cannot be an inflationary recession, yet all of the recessions that have wracked the U.S. economy in recent decades have been inflationary. Alas, the academic “market test” really does not embrace the actual success or failure of a theory.