Peter Schiff: When Is the Market Going to Wake Up to this Con?
As expected, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates another 25 basis points on Wednesday.
The mainstream read the post FOMC meeting comments to be relatively hawkish, saying Powell and Company seemed to indicate that future rate cutting is on pause.
Peter Schiff opened up his podcast reminding us that just one year ago, the Fed was raising rates and telling us it would continue to do so through 2019. It also claimed that quantitative tightening was on “autopilot.”
And they said this with a straight face. And everybody believed them.”
At the time, Peter was saying it wasn’t going to happen. He said the central bank would start cutting rates and relaunch QE. And here we are.
The central bank removed the phrase saying it was committed to “act as appropriate to sustain the expansion” from its forward guidance. This was widely viewed as a more hawkish stance. The Fed replaced that language, instead saying, “The Committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook as it assesses the appropriate path of the target range for the federal funds rate.” Powell was more emphatic during his press conference, saying bank officials “see the current stance of monetary policy as likely to remain appropriate.”
Of course, Powell again claimed that the Fed is not engaged in quantitative easing despite the repo operations and bond-buying program. He tried to draw a distinction between QE and today’s operations by pointing out that the central bank is buying short-term bonds today while it bought longer-term debt during QE.
This is really a distinction without a difference. I mean, who cares what the maturity of the bonds are?”
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