Buy Anything!

The Fed is going to taper the tiny taper right down to zero, sending stocks, bonds and gold soaring. When Kerry talked about "unbelievably small", who knew he meant the next Fed move?

Paul Krugman gets results!

This week the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee — the group of men and women who set U.S. monetary policy — will be holding its sixth meeting of 2013. At the meeting’s end, the committee is widely expected to announce the so-called “taper” — a slowing of the pace at which it buys long-term assets.

Memo to the Fed: Please don’t do it. True, the arguments for a taper are neither crazy nor stupid, which makes them unusual for current U.S. policy debate. But if you think about the balance of risks, this is a bad time to be doing anything that looks like a tightening of monetary policy.

Summers is over and the doves have the reins (Doves can handle horses? Metaphor Madness!). I think Krugman is right about this, but let me fervently add - I hope he is right.

Comments

[[email protected]]

When doves cry...

afternoon all.

[[email protected]]

***Doves can handle horses? Metaphor Madness!***

feeling more purple rain.

[Danube on iPad]

This is a sunject about which I know absolutely nothing.

[Danube on iPad]

*subject*

[[email protected]]

neither do I. anyone see the launch! hook up to the ISS in a few days.

[maryrose]

I"d be interested to hear what jimmyk,cathyf and Rick Ballard think of BenB's recent wussy move. The word wussy was used by a respected business economist on CNBC after the 2:00 pn announcement. Many had expected it to be tapered by at least10 or 15 billion. Anything to protect preezy. the stock market innediatelt jumped over 100 points in a matter of seconds. I thought at first it was a flash problem.

[Beasts of England]

[email protected]:26 - well played.

[maryrose]

TM:
I think Krugman is wrong about this. Tapering should begin immediately. We are operating on a false sense of well-being because of artificial pumping. One economist said down the road we will look back at today as one where we could have made a big difference but chickened out. The woman from KC voted to start tapering the other 9 to keep everything as is. No decision-Who does that sound like?... A bunch of wussy boys in charge of our economy with the head wuss-clueless and soon to be replaced by a wussy woman.

[Beasts of England]

So, true to ‘The Narrative’, the leftists have found themselves a new George Wallace at Alabama! Those mean ol’ white sorority girls! Segregation now, or something like that. Crank up the race grievance industry! Network news trucks parked outside the Tri-Delta house. It’s raining racists in T-Town, baby!

Every major newspaper in the state has picked it up as breaking news, with scathing editorials to further assuage their white guilt. Commies. On the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser’s print edition today, there’s a picture of newly-minted Delta Delta Deltas running to their new house. And front and center in the picture is my younger daughter... Liberalism is a f*cking disease.

[matt]

The markets were primed for a 10-15% taper. Bernanke is keep his foot down on the debt accelerator to the tune of $85 Billion/month.

The one sliver of sunshine is that they are buying mortgages which will hopefully be repaid. Treasury debt is looking riskier and riskier.

[jimmyk]

I think Krugman is wrong about this.

I agree. I think it was Ranger or some JOMer who said that if all you have is monetary policy, everything looks like a liquidity problem. In Krugman's case, if all you believe is Keynesian economics the there's no problem that can't be solved by ramping up the printing press. But the reality is that slow growth is not the same as low demand, and today's slow growth is because of Barry's harebrained policies of destroying initiative, turning everyone into part-time workers and disability recipients.

[jimmyk]

The AP does Roseanne Roseannadanna on the Navy shooter's gun.

https://twitter.com/paigelav/status/380418436838330368/photo/1

Translation: Although as journalists we know that initial information about major events like this is often erroneous, we just had to run with it!

[narciso]

The problem is even Keynes would blanch at what is being conducted in his name, ala McCluhan, in Annie Hall 'you teach a class in this, you know nothing of my work'

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

The stock market likes it.

[narciso]

Politico was sketching out similar ground,

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/322903-obama-distress-signal-president-seeks-help-from-first-term-a-team

Hans Christian Andersen, didn't intend it as a how to guide.

[narciso]

Your book bombed, why are you babbling now;

http://twitchy.com/2013/09/18/joyce-carol-oates-reveals-the-real-culprits-behind-shootings-hint-not-the-shooters/

[Clarice]

will this shed some light on the millions missing from the Clinton Foundation?http://freebeacon.com/muslim-brotherhood-official-former-clinton-foundation-employee-arrested/

[narciso]

I did not see that snippet in the Times piece, I was listening to David Kirkpatrick who has been subject to more than one fisking in this forum, and he earned more of it, in an NPR interview, when he was surprised he that El Minya was a brotherhood stronghold in Egypr.

[NK(tryin' again)]

Per [email protected]:58-- the Fed is trapped. Obummer has killed the jobs market with ObummerCare and tax increase demands on profitable small/medium businesss, and his 2009/2010 STIMULUS! and MediCaid spending increases live on causing $300-400B of higher spending than the 2009 baseline, so the deficit is huge. Ben B and the Doves are terrified at what happens if they do anything that looks like tightening, because the economy will completely tank and long term rates explode debt service payments by the Treasury. So they keep pumping, and that does hold things together-- except for gas and food prices and that's only significant for working stiff, back of the hand for them. This is a sick state of affairs. Complete disaster. Although there was a certain man this afternoon at the Darien Range Rover dealership...

[4JIB2]

jimmyk and other econoiacs out there - When does inflation kick in? And with gas at $3+/gal for 1000 days haven't we been in an inflated economy for that time anyway?

I once heard that American runs on housing, cars and energy. Is that still true because if it is then inflation can ruin a lot of what we are economically.

[matt]

the problem is that most of the money ended up sitting on the servers of the same banks that got us into the mess in the first place.

The multinationals are buying up smaller companies at a record pace with cheap corporate financing.

I noticed at Costco the other day that the prices of basics like toilet paper, detergent and other staples seem to be up @ 15-20%. The prices of most commodities are still at record highs and the Saudis aren't stupid which is one reason oil is at over $105/bbl consistently. the dollar is de facto losing value already.

Once the stimulus stops the banks can cash in yet again as interest rates rise, which is already happening in the RE market.

Our government is conspiring with the banks and large corporations to bankrupt us.

[4JIB2]

I am prepared to lose my bet if this couple are in the WH on 1/22/17:

From your favorite magazine - Vogue! Hard to believe, eh?

[peter]

another way to look at it is Obama needs to solidify his base of spoiled trust-fund brats by pumping up the stock market. Inflation be damned! The rich get richer and the poor get air conditioning. I don't know what I am saying. when does it all blow up? Who knows? Learn to love the Obama years! It's a permanent staycation funemployment!

[matt]

JiB, the four pillars are natural resources, home building & construction, manufacturing, and agriculture.

Industrially, all we really have left is the auto industry.

[Another Bob]

@matt | September 18, 2013 at 05:10 PM:

Agree completely. We're being flat lied-to about inflation. The banksters are the only ones cashing in. The savings of responsible people are being steadily eroded away. 0Care is *intended* to force people to a gubbmint solution. Almost as if it's *intended* to turn us into a nation of serfs (h/t rse).

My point of idle curiosity is what the game is that keeps gold from reflecting that inflation in the ways it used to.

[4JIB2]

matt,

Not according to this chart in Wiki.

manufacturing, construction and agriculture are legacy sectors these days. Check it out.

[Danube on iPad]

Taranto provides the good news;

"Antigun extremists are exhausted and demoralized. Newtown filled them with rage, which was understandable, but the direction in which they turned it--against lawful gun owners and defenders of the Second Amendment--was not. The effort to incite a moral panic was largely a failure, and nobody seems to have the energy to try it again."

[4JIB2]

BuzzFeed gets it once in awhile like a stopped clock.

10 Mass Murders prevented by someone with a gun

[narciso]

'winning the future;

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/18/probe-launched-over-claim-that-elite-capitol-police-unit-blocked-from-navy-yard/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29

[Sue]

It's okay to masturbate in public in Sweden. As long as your masturbation isn't directed at anyone. I wonder if that applies if a Muslim is in the vicinity of the masterbator?

[4JIB2]

Okay, I admit my mistakes.

I looks like the Washington Navy Yard is officially gentrified. I just saw a pedicab riding around in front of Peter Doocy's report from there.

That is always the first indication that you have now entered YuppieDom.

[matt]

There are only four basic sources of wealth creation. Almost everything else is a service or parasitical to the creation of real wealth.

[Danube on iPad]

I think I recall being taught there were three: land, labor and capital

[narciso]

Taranto points out, that Flathead, is ethnographically challenged, plus insane;

Friedman notes that the store clerk, who has his hair dyed "neon pink," blew a kiss at a young woman who walked by the store outside. "Observing all this joie de vivre," Friedman continues, "I thought to myself: 'Wow, wouldn't it be nice to be a Swiss?' "

[NK(tryin' again)]

Narciso-- I bet Flathead wishes he could speak Swiss as well!! (just like Obummer speaks Austrian)

[4JIB2]

I have actually met Bashar Assad. Not kidding.

Mrs. JiB, her father, mother and I would go sometimes to a great little Italian in Knightsbridge near Motcomb street named Zeffarano. They were living close by to us and it was easy to meet there.
he
One night for dinner, this tall mustached guy (looked arab to me at them time but could have been Bulgarian) and a runway model on his arm shows up with two bodyguards, sits down next to us and his guys take seats a few tables away.

Didn't know who he was but my FIL sure did since he is like a super Internationalist and decided to start a conversation (natch) which I cringed at but then decided was interesting when he said his father was the President of Syria. He was practicing Ophtamology in Britian and had studied here and looked forward to continuing to live here.

My FIL, of course, was interested in his banking business and how insurance markets worked there. I was impressed. The guy was very informative and educated and his wife a looker. Now that I look back on it, he is smarter than Obama and I can understand why he is a Putin client.

[4JIB2]

Is it possible that we can convince Ailes to allow Greg Palkot to interview Obama the next time?

[matt]

Unlike Austrian, there is Romansch and there is also Schwitzerdeutsch which is a very difficult dialect of German. There are 5 other languages widely spoken in Switzerland as well.

Not sure if Friedman knows that, but damn if I didn't see all sorts of funny colored hair and piercings in Portland (or LA, or most anywhere these days. Not sure about the joie de vivre as hipsters typically are full of shit.

[[email protected]]

***Inflation be damned!***

Isn't the stock market going up a bit more than 100% in 3-ish years a bit'o inflation?

thanks beasts.

[[email protected]]

and speaking of inflation anyone see the rents in this slice of heaven and college tuition.

living expenses, rent, transportation...pick 2 out of 3.

[henry]

Inflation? Don't be silly. That is merely a bubble a la 1929.

[Extraneus]

Whoopie! QE is good for me! Or is it tapering? (I don't understand this stuff either, but charts do not lie.)

Yet gold was up 4.5% today... Wouldn't that signal big-time inflation?

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Fox has a 30 minute interview with Assad right now, arranged by Kucinich who asks half the questions and Greg Palcot asks the rest.

I find him likeable and hard to understand (which may explain the first).

[4JIB2]

matt,

My BIL and FIL speak perfect Swiss German. Of course, one is a banker and the other a pharma guy. Bashar is making Obama look like a bitter little guy who didn't get his way.

[polly]

Jane, Assad is NOT likeable and he is simply saying things to make himself appear more likeable. Honestly! Get with the picture.

[MarkO]

"a bitter little guy who didn't get his way"

All the time. If we had a press everyone would know.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Oh look, sailor is back.

[Danube on iPad]

Assad seems as slick as boiled okra.

[4JIB2]

Polly,

Yeah he is a cruel little prick but wouldn't you like to see your President asked these type questions and get the answers from real journalists? He may be hell on earth but at least the guy is giving more information than our guy gives us.

[polly]

JIB, Obama would never be asked those questions.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Hmmm, is boiled okra slick?

[bgates]

Now that I look back on it, he is smarter than Obama

So's the runway model and the two bodyguards.

I note you don't have a link for that anecdote, which is ok, because some of the insights on here are linked quotes from other sources, and some are derived from personal experience.

It's okay to masturbate in public in Sweden.

I'm just saying.

[MarkO]

For the good of America, let us never have Assad debate Obama.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Obama is shriveled up in the fetal position at this point.

[Sue]

I can't link.

[narciso]

You have to be smart or you end up dead, over there;

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-5-things-everyone-should-know-about-syria-5808

[Threadkiller]

If we had a choice I would pick Kucinich* over Palcot to interview Obama.

*I think my chain is getting yanked (not that there is anything wrong with that in Sweden) about Kucinich conducting an interview in the first place.

[Threadkiller]

Would that be a "link" link?

[4JIB2]

The LIV's have voted. They want Assad to run for POTUS.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

ABC Action News ‏@abcactionnews 51m

Navy has evacuated 2 buildings at a Virginia base due to security incident; suspicious person being questioned - @AP

hmm

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

"YOu're not saying our president doesn't have credibility"

Kucinich

[4JIB2]

And, I mean't to add, they want Denis Kucinch to replace David Gregory on MTP.

[pinkman]

"If we had a choice I would pick Kucinich* over Palcot to interview Obama."

Dang. I'd pay-per-view that.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

It seems like Assad has balls of steel.

[Sue]

If your fairly intelligent and you are a dictator in that part of the world, wouldn't balls of steel be part of the job description?

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

I think the Assad interview is fascinating. Imagining a one on one between Assad and Obama, I am sad to say, makes me extremely pessimistic about the next three plus years. Imagining an real journalistic interview of BOzo like this makes me even more pessimistic.

If Assad is a tin pot dictator, what does that make ElJefe?

[Sue]

You're not your.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Are you watching Krauthammer?

[Sue]

No. Ball game.

[matt]

is Kucinich wearing his tinfoil hat?

Bashar Assad: "Mr. Kucinich, you have a slight overbite. I can fix that in just 30 minutes, no charge."

having these furriners being interviewed and editorializing in our press is very, very odd. These are our enemies.

[Sue]

You probably meant that for Jim.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

What a comparison between Assad and Obama. No wonder the world is laughing at us.

[Sue]

Matt,

That's what I was thinking. Why is Fox doing this?

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Why is Fox doing this?

Because they can.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

I'm very appreciate of the commentary.

[Extraneus]

Ok, so Obama couldn't survive a Q&A session in the British house of lords or commons. He couldn't handle an interview that Assad can. Putin kicks his ass for fun.

Yet he's the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Military.

DOOM doesn't quite capture that.

[Sue]

I guess so.

[4JIB2]

Why?

Because they are the only media out there willing to show us what evil looks like and how it lies.

Of course, our MSM could do the same thing and interview POTUS the same way;.

Nothing wrong with what they did. In fact, it is a public service to contrast with our own destroyer of values.

[[email protected]]

***That's what I was thinking. Why is Fox doing this?***

they got burned by the fake PhD lobbyist and now they are running the other way.

Kucinich called in a few Kremlin favors.

I've got nothing.

*** "Mr. Kucinich, you have a slight overbite. I can fix that in just 30 minutes, no charge."***

have him go a few rounds Putin? or that his face has been rearraged so that his eyes are in his mouth.

[peter]

what a sad day when a third rate dictator from comes across as more intelligent and reasonable than the POTUS>

[narciso]

Krauthammer does point out some of the context, However seeing how the movement rather rapidly generated toward Salafism, among the majority ethnic factions, it's not that surprising,

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

It just keeps getting worse and worse for OBama. How long before people start outing him on these scandals?

[Sue]

Evil? Will they see that? Jane found him likeable.

[Jane-Rebel Alliance1]

Krauthammer nails it.

[4JIB2]

Juan Williams intellect = Race trumps everything. What a pathetic little man.

[Extraneus]

what a sad day when a third rate dictator from comes across as more intelligent and reasonable than the POTUS>

What do you mean "comes across," Kimosabe?

[Sue]

It is a sad day when a brutal dictator who allowed AQ fighters to fly into his country and cross over into Iraq killing our soldiers is given air time on a major news channel in the US. He should be shot on sight.

[Danube on iPad]

What did Krauthammer say?

[narciso]

He pointed that the Arab Spring in Syria started out peaceably, and that point about
the terrorist pipeline, against coalition forces, that has boomeranged into the Nusra Front and other outfits.

[MarkO]

I heard Dr. K. call Obama a narcissist.
He also lamented the absence of "grown-ups" in the administration.

[narciso]

bgates would be hard pressed to top this;

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/09/18/Politico-Obama-is-a-Pathological-Rationalist

[jorod]

I'd like to give my teen-age son a credit card... Are u nuts?

[Account Deleted]

Maryrose,

IMO - Mad Ben made a correct call based upon an improving understanding of the reality of the employment situation. QE is a non-functioning tool and has been from its misconception but the Fed cannot admit it and the rationale for continuing down the wrong path is correct. The UE rate's decline is due solely to the substitution of 4 30 hour jobs (plus SNAP) for 3 40 hour jobs. It's good to see the Fed recognize both the idiocy of too tight a focus on a misleading number and (IMO) the fiscal impact regarding the increasing eligibility for benefits due to the BOzocare driven reduction in hours.

The market reaction is similar to Wile E Coyote's gleeful smile just before he looks down.

[narciso]

Krauthammer pointed out how Bashir's approach was less confrontational the n Volodya, which Iowahawk describes as 'doing donuts on the White House lawn'

[Account Deleted]

Sue,

Why can't Assad appear likeable and still badly need killing? I don't believe the two are incompatible at all.

[Eric in Boise]

If Assad is a tin pot dictator, what does that make ElJefe?

A tin pot wannabe, who keeps getting thwarted by the fact that he heads up the greatest country on Earth, not because of him, but in spite of him.

[Caro's iPad]

The panel pretty much stressed that BA is a liar and dilusional and good that we know that. And that Gates and Panetta are grown ups that are missing in the second term of total "yes" women.

[MarkO]

All of this mess in Syria and Panetta's harsh criticism reinforces my belief that it was Panetta that forced the Osama capture and that Obama was reluctant at best.

[Ignatz]

Agreed Assad should be shot, but is Greg Palcott the man for the job?
Until we find someone who is, why shouldn't we hear what the creep has to say?

I'd have liked to have known what Mao, Stalin or Hitler had to say while they were doing their deeds, while at the same time hoping fervently for their assassinations and overthrow.

[MarkO]

I'm at the point I was in 1967, I don't believe a thing the government tells me about anything. Evan Assad.

LBJ had big ears, too.