Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fumbling Endlessly in the Dark

Yeah, I kinda thought that's what "Fed" stood for.

Looks like QE3 is just another random shot.
A quiet day on Wall Street turned into the worst sell-off in three months after a Federal Reserve official said he doubted the bank's effort to boost economic growth would work.

Charles Plosser, president of the Fed's Philadelphia branch, told an audience Tuesday that the Fed's effort to support the economy would likely fall short of its goals.
Here's a thought: maybe it's pointless to keep using monetary policy to counteract the ill effects of bad fiscal policy.

Hey, Nobel Prize Committee: drop me an email and I'll tell you where to send my dough.


9 comments:

JeffS said...

Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind, for some reason.

rinardman said...

JeffS nailed it.

Bad policy not working? Let's try some more!

RebeccaH said...

For God's sake, I think a huge cloud of stupid descended on Washington some time ago and has yet to lift.

Yojimbo said...


I have a slightly different take. Perhaps you can view the Fed as more of a 527 organization here initiating Operation Keep Our Cushy Jobs Intact. The Fed may be trying to get Obama re-elected with QE3. They know if Romney gets in, along with a strong Tea Party coalition, serious changes will be made to the FeD.

QE3 will not only keep the market up until the election it might also provide cover for some doctored stats going into the election. If they come out with better than expected jobs numbers in these last two jobs reports the Obama Administration can always say that QE3 is working.

Paranoid people aren't always wrong, you know.

JorgXMcKie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paco said...

Well, you might be right. I think Romney already has Bernanke marked for some time in a re-education camp, so he's definitely fighting to keep his "patron" in office. But I tend to think that the market has already pretty much priced QE3 into its calculations - or, rather, did so before it was announced, so its value as a flotation device from here on in may turn out to be limited.

JorgXMcKie said...

Look. It's obvious, that bleeding is the cure. If we bled you and you didn't get better we just need to bleed you some more.

We've been here before.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/3529

Michael Lonie said...

"Here's a thought: maybe it's pointless to keep using monetary policy to counteract the ill effects of bad fiscal policy."

Something we learned during the 1970s. You would think Fed officials would remember that. You'd be wrong in that assumption. Does the Fed have no institutional memory? Do the people running it have premature Alzheimers, so that they have no memory of a time they all lived through? Inquiring minds want to know.

I suspect the leftists we have in power now regard the ecoonomic and fiscal disaster they are bringing on as a feature, not a bug, of their policies. It will cut the USA down to its proper size so as to usher in the post-American world of dominance by Third-World countries like Iran. Hope n Change!

kc said...

Thank you, Michael Lonie. Not being well-educated, I often find it difficult to express an opinion I can't find a 'reason' for. I have believed (but seldom said) for quite some time that this is what 'they' WANT. It's not a mistake, it's not an unfortunate glitch - it's the whole purpose for every move they make. It's the reason I am more frightened than ever for our country.

Thank you.