Ben Bernanke

A simmering rage is bubbling below the surface as 20% of American households rely on food stamps to survive, the percentage of Americans in the labor force stands at a four decade low, real household income remains stagnant at 1988 levels, corporate profits have reached record levels while corporations continue to fire Americans – shipping their jobs overseas, and the six mega-corporations representing the mainstream media cover up the truth, mislead the public with propaganda, while celebrating the .1% as saviors of our economy. There is nothing more volatile to societal stability than millions of unemployed men, growing angry and resentful towards the ruling class for their lot in life.

Price for Thanksgiving dinner pre-Fed: $0.50

Price for Thanksgiving dinner 102 years after establishement of the Fed: $50

Janet Yellen’s astonishing letter to the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is a sign that the central bank is panicking over the fact that Congress is unhappy with the job it has been doing.

"So much of what we now accept as routine in financial markets would have been thought impossible prior to the 2008 crisis ?- the next logical stage in the global currency war will be direct fx intervention!"

- Albert Edwards

Having detailed the "perverted nonsense" that is the collapsing and negative US swap spreads (here, here, here, and here) and noted money manager's concerns that the big question remains whether there is "something bigger brewing under the surface that so far hasn’t been pinpointed yet," it appears Goldman Sachs feels the need to 'explain' the anomaly in what appears an effort to calm fears about the broken money markets. Of course, we don’t have to figure out what the “market” is saying about a negative spread because it isn’t saying anything other than “something” is wrong and even Goldman admits this signals funding and balance sheet strains are worsening since August.

"Federal Reserve officials meeting last month anticipated it “could well be” time to raise short-term interest rates at a December policy meeting after keeping them pinned near zero for seven years. Fed officials thus decided to change the wording of their Oct. 28 policy statement to ensure their options were open for a move in December, according to minutes of the October meeting released Wednesday with the regular three-week lag."

Personally handing out money to each "deserving" citizen...

"It is already too late. Having delayed way beyond the point when it might typically have raised rates in previous cycles, it has allowed an Orc-like monster to incubate, hatch and emerge into the sunlight, snarling and ready to do battle."

Evolution happens without goals... without conscious thought. It is a trip without a destination. It is also the way economies work; they do not respond well to manipulation by self-important meddlers. But if you are speaking for the entire planet, you have already gone way beyond the theory of evolution. You are in a world without theory… without science… without experience or history. You are in a world of make-believe – where pundits pretend to know what they are talking about and newspapers fill space with mythical claptrap.

Does it really take courage for unelected economic bureaucrats to print up trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in order to bail out Wall Street banks? I’m sure it will certainly take courage if the taxpayer finally wakes up to the ruse before it fails. And sooner or later, every ruse does fail, even when run by the world’s most powerful cartel.

“Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental Bank of Japan purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation”

- Ben Bernanke, Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan, 2003

“Inequality seems to be widening. A sales-tax hike and price increases last year hit households hard. Abe hasn’t succeeded to bring benefits to most ordinary people.”

The production structure has long since adapted to ZIRP and “short-term gambling, punting on momentum-driven moves, on levered buybacks” are further lifting the opportunity costs of abandoning it. In order to try to rescue its credibility, the Fed may decide to try some timid, quarter-point increases. But what will they do if markets really crash?

"But they won’t, you know. Yellen and Draghi believe in the Taylor model and the Phillips curve. Gresham’s law will be found in the history books, but his corollary has little chance of making it into future economic textbooks. The result will likely be a continued imbalance between savings and investment, a yield curve too flat to support historic business models, and an anemic 1-2% rate of real economic growth in even the most robust developed countries."

Investors are aware that the market is manipulated... and it doesn’t seem to worry them. They don’t fight the Fed; they sit down at the table with it. They play the game. And so far, they have done well. But now... She will signal that, soon, the central bank will begin the long return to “normalcy.” Don’t believe it. The entire system depends on abnormality.