Federal Reserve

Growing Expectations Of TBTF Bank Creditor Bailouts Tighten Their Tentacles Around Taxpayers

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Growing Expectations Of TBTF Bank Creditor Bailouts Tighten Their Tentacles Around Taxpayers

One of the few rebellious Fed heads, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, fired a salvo when testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. He hit Wall Street risks covered by implicit government guarantees in the size of America’s GDP.

The Stock Bubble In Context (Will The Last Bear Please Turn Out The Lights?)

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on The Stock Bubble In Context (Will The Last Bear Please Turn Out The Lights?)

Stock market bubbles – they allow investors to make the mostest the fastest – don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in a context. But this time, the context is different. Very different.

Does QE Boost Employment? (Somebody Should Send This To Yellen)

by Contributor •  • Comments Off on Does QE Boost Employment? (Somebody Should Send This To Yellen)

By Lee Adler, The Wall Street Examiner: Overlaying raw employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with the Fed’s balance sheet offers surprising insights. Brief must-see video with excellent chart and explanation. Somebody should send it to Yellen.

“Confessions” Of A Master Of Revolving Door Between Wall Street And The Fed

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on “Confessions” Of A Master Of Revolving Door Between Wall Street And The Fed

We’ve known it all along, but now a former Fed insider confirmed it. QE, despite the Fed’s relentless efforts “to spin it as a tool for helping Main Street,” was “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.” But it’s complicated. He’s a revolving-door Wall-Street banker.

Watching The Fed Marinate In Its Own Artfully Concocted Pickle

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Watching The Fed Marinate In Its Own Artfully Concocted Pickle

After five years of QE, and $3 trillion in new money floating around, we now have asset bubbles everywhere. Risk is no longer priced into anything. In fact, it has disappeared as a factor. And the Fed is publicly fretting about it.

Human Inability To Grasp Very Large Numbers Abused By Politicians And The Fed

by James Murray •  • Comments Off on Human Inability To Grasp Very Large Numbers Abused By Politicians And The Fed

By James Murray: Crows are considered the most intelligent birds. They can count to three. Anything over three is “many” to a crow. Humans are basically the same way. At some point, numbers get so big that they just become “many.”

Dancing Chickens And The Fed

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Dancing Chickens And The Fed

Some time ago, I listened to the host of a radio show tell the story about the dancing chickens – and the Fed. It wasn’t, intuitively, an obvious combo. But he nailed it, now that the 100th anniversary of the Fed’s creation is approaching.

The Smart Money Denies They’re The Smart Money As They Franticly Sell Their Crown Jewels Before The Bubble Blows Up

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on The Smart Money Denies They’re The Smart Money As They Franticly Sell Their Crown Jewels Before The Bubble Blows Up

“It’s a great time to sell,” mused a pension fund investment officer. And Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity firm, is doing exactly that, feverishly, relentlessly, hand over fist, at peak valuations, cashing out. What does that mean for the rest of us?

Another Heap Of Wall-Street Hype and BS

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Another Heap Of Wall-Street Hype and BS

Earnings estimates for Q3 have been crashing for a year. On October 1, 2012, our brilliant Wall Street analysts estimated that they’d leap 15.9%. As of Friday, these brilliant analysts have chopped their forecasts for the same brilliant quarter down to a measly growth of 2.1%. Stagnation! Now they’re hyping how companies are beating these crummy forecasts!

Dollar Destruction And Gold Over 47 Years – A Personal Story

by Johnnygeneric •  • Comments Off on Dollar Destruction And Gold Over 47 Years – A Personal Story

In a human life, 47 years isn’t all that long. So this is a personal data point of how the Fed has managed, or rather mismanaged, or rather utterly and willfully destroyed, the dollar since his mom sold their trailer in 1966 – and what that would mean in gold today.