Unfortunately for Ben, rates are already rising around the world. Rates on Portugal’s ten-year are over 7%. Rates on Greece’s ten-year are back over 10%. Japan, the country of zero interest rates has seen a spike in its rates since April. Even Treasuries are surging higher, despite the Fed buying $45 billion worth of them every month.
So, we have a jobless recovery (the unemployment ratio hasn’t budged) an income-less recovery (real hourly wages remain below June 2009 levels), and the yet somehow we have a “recovery” that will result in GDP taking off any day now?
At this point any sane person would scream, “STOP.” The driver is clearly a madman and shouldn’t be let anywhere near the driver’s seat. Moreover, he’s totally lost all credibility and isn’t to be trusted.
Wild price swings in a market of this size (that is often leveraged at 80 to 1 or even 100 to 1) mean massive amounts of wealth evaporating instantly. Historically, currencies are the first asset class to register when the system is in big trouble. These wild swings in the US Dollar are a major red flag that trouble is beginning to brew behind the scenes in the financial system.
The move is very reminiscent of the 2007 top where we had a top, a brief collapse and then a final burst higher to a new high. Within a few months however, the markets had begun to descend into what would ultimately be the worst Crisis in 100 years.
Congratulations Bernanke, you’ve created an even bigger bubble than that of 2007. Your latest statements about providing liquidity have destroyed completely destroyed your credibility as Fed Chairman. And they’ve bought you at most a brief pause before this whole mess comes crashing down.
We’ve already had an incredible record setting streak for food stamp usage. Now we can add high unemployment to the mix. The US economy just posted its 54th straight month at which unemployment was north of 7.5%.
This is the #1 reason all the talk of “recovery” and “jobs growth” is totally bogus. If you are willing to fudge numbers and adjust measurements, then sure, things look much better. But the reality is that since 2009, there hasn’t been anywhere NEAR the job growth needed to claim we’re in a recovery.
This does NOT open the door to more QE now. If the Fed tapers QE in the future then yes, it might engage in more QE later down the road. But the idea that the Fed will increase QE when it’s already running $85 billion a month is misguided.
As noted last week, the markets will likely rally into the Fourth of July. Most “analysts” will view this as a sign that the initial drop down from two weeks ago was a fluke and it’s time to “buy the dip.”
The global Central Banks are in damage control mode. The big story here is China, then Japan then the US. But all of them are losing control of the markets.
