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Inflation Has Run Amok – Danielle DiMartino Booth

Former Fed insider Danielle DiMartino Booth is sure the Fed is going to raise interest rates again at the September meeting. Why? DiMartino Booth explains, “I think he’s (Jerome Powell) the most independent Fed Chair in the past 30 years, and I think he’s going to raise rates regardless of what is happening in politics. . . . You don’t kowtow to political pressure when you need to do right by the economy. . . . Powell thinks the inflation numbers are under-reported. He’s listening to companies saying their profit margins are being squeezed . . . non-labor costs are outpacing labor costs by the greatest extent in three years, and what that tells you is inflation has run amok. . . . I think the Fed is going to continue to raise rates. . . . I think the markets have priced in the (September) rate hike by 90%. We may be looking forward to Jay Powell backing off come December. So, I am not really worried right now about a skyrocketing dollar.”

DiMartino Booth points out the biggest problem the world faces now is record global debt near $250 trillion “that few can conceive a workable solution.” Di Martino Booth says, “It really does keep me up at night because of the nature of debt. As we approach the 10 year anniversary of Lehman Brothers, the one takeaway that many have forgotten in the decade that has passed is that you don’t know where the true ticking time bomb is when there is an over-indebted problem. . . . When systemic risk is released, it cannot be contained by any higher authority and potentially be unleashed. The greatest peril of debt is we don’t know where the danger truly lies until something triggers it.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fed Staff Delivers Intellectual Ammo for Hawkish Approach to Inflation

Fed Staff Delivers Intellectual Ammo for Hawkish Approach to Inflation

“Because monetary policy acts with a lag, waiting for inflation to materialize before reacting is undesirable, particularly when economic conditions are such that outsized deviations of inflation from its target are a plausible outcome.”

Let’s break the above quote apart and put it in perspective:

  • Waiting with rate hikes until inflation materializes is undesirable.
  • This is particularly true today after years of global QE and zero-interest-rate policy, when “outsized deviations of inflation” – such as a sudden and hard-to-control surge – “are a plausible outcome.”

The quote is the conclusion of the 39-page research paper by five economists at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, of which Jerome Powell is chairman. The researchers used stochastic simulations to outline how two uncertainties – inflation dynamics and something the Fed calls the natural rate of unemployment (we’ll get to them in a moment) – “affect the choice of strategies for monetary policy.”

The paper was released with careful timing ahead of Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole symposium, where he defended the Fed’s “gradual” approach to rate hikes against attacks from both sides – those saying they weren’t fast enough, given what’s happening on the inflation front, and those saying that the only good money is cheap money.

The paper wasn’t so balanced. It gave fuel to the discussion at the Fed on how fast to raise rates now that inflation has hit the Fed’s target of 2%, based on the Fed’s preferred measure, core PCE, which has been hovering between 1.9% and 2.0% since May.

The crux is the relationship between the unemployment rate (3.9% in July), a level traditionally associated with effects where labor market tightness leads to rising wages which then pushes up prices. This is the classic model, embodied by the Phillips curve.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Fed’s “Inflation Target” is Impoverishing American Workers

Redefined Terms and Absurd Targets

At one time, the Federal Reserve’s sole mandate was to maintain stable prices and to “fight inflation.”  To the Fed, the financial press, and most everyone else “inflation” means rising prices instead of its original and true definition as an increase in the money supply.  Rising prices are a consequence – a very painful consequence – of money printing.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell apparently does not see the pernicious effects of inflation (at least he seems to be looking around… [PT]) Photo credit: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

Naturally, the Fed and all other central bankers prefer the definition of inflation as a rise in prices which insidiously hides the fact that they, being the issuers of currency, are the real culprit for increased prices.

Be that as it may, the common understanding of inflation as rising prices has always been seen as pernicious and destructive to an economy and living standards.  In the perverted world of modern economics, however, the idea of inflation as an intrinsic evil has been turned on its head and monetary authorities the world over now have “inflation targets” which they hope to attain.

America’s central bank is right in line with this lunacy. According to the Fed’s “May minutes”, it wants

Translated into understandable verbiage, the Fed wants everyone to pay at least 2% higher prices p.a. for the goods they buy.

Yes, by some crazed thinking US monetary officials believe that consumers paying higher prices is somehow good for economic activity and standards of living!  Of course, anyone with a modicum of sense can see that this is absurd and that those who espouse such policy should be laughed at and summarily locked up in an asylum!  Yet, this is now standard policy, not just with the Fed, but with the ECU and other central banks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Watch Live: The World’s Top 3 Central Bankers Discuss What’s Next

Update: Powell has maintained his hawkish tone from last week’s press conference with his comments in Sintra on the labor market and monetary policy. He expressed confidence in the US economy and said “the case for continued gradual rate hikes is strong.”

According to CitiFX’s market commentary, its traders highlighted one dovish remark when Powell was speaking about the uncertainty surrounding the NAIRU: “Natural rate estimates have always been uncertain, and may be even more so now as inflation has become less responsive to the unemployment rate…as I mentioned, a tight labor market could draw more people into the labor force.”

Here are the headlines:

  • POWELL SAYS CASE FOR CONTINUED GRADUAL RATE HIKES IS `STRONG’
  • POWELL: JOB MARKET TO STRENGTHEN FURTHER, SUPPORT WAGE GROWTH
  • FED’S POWELL REMARKS IN TEXT OF SPEECH AT ECB FORUM IN PORTUGAL
  • POWELL: INFLATION HAS MOVED UP CLOSE TO FED’S 2% GOAL
  • POWELL: U.S. ECONOMY PERFORMING VERY WELL
  • POWELL SAYS GRADUAL RATE-HIKE CASE `BROADLY SUPPORTED’ ON FOMC
  • POWELL: YET TO SEE INFLATION STAY NEAR GOAL ON SUSTAINED BASIS
  • POWELL: U.S. FISCAL POLICY TO ADD TO DEMAND OVER NEXT FEW YEARS

* * *

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will appear on a policy panel Wednesday that’s set to begin at 15:30 CET (that’s 10:30 am ET). They will be joined by Philip Lowe, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. The panel is the last big event of the 2018 ECB annual forum on central banking, which was held in Sintra, Portugal and featured the theme “price and wage-setting in advanced economies.”

Of course, there is likely to be disagreement among the 4 (or 3 big guys) as Kuroda remains pedal to the metal on his easing policies (despite the stealth tapering), Draghi has started to adjust to a tightening regime, and Powell is in full normalization mode.

All of which is ironic given that all three  face notable demises in their recent economic data…

 

Watch the panel live below:

Breslow: “If You Ever Needed Proof That Central Banks Have Crushed These Markets, There You Have It”

It’s been a while since we featured the grouchy version of Richard Breslow, Bloomberg’s  “Trader’s Notes” author, who is back with a bang with his latest missive, explaining why “Ignoring Current Events Just Makes You a Slave” and why the mockery of centrally-planned “markets” has gone on long enough…

From Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow

Ignoring Current Events Just Makes You a Slave: Trader’s Notes

This was billed as the most important week of the year for global markets. And we made it almost through Monday before “exhausted” traders were being advised to shuffle back to their safe rooms to get lost in watching the upcoming soccer matches. Boo hoo.

When in doubt, watch TV is one hell of an investment strategy. If you ever needed more proof that central banks have crushed these markets, there you have it. The belief that nothing matters other than an inconsequential rate hike some time over a year from now in euro land or whether the Fed will make the ever so bold move of raising the IOER by only 20 basis points speaks volumes. And it isn’t being complimentary.

It’s a truly bizarre construct to judge the import and implications of every event through the lens of whether green- pack Eurodollar futures jump or dump half a point. Especially when it’s intermingled for show with nonsense about demographic trends sure to produce a precise outcome 30 years from now. No wonder the smart money is investing in artificial intelligence programs that don’t listen to this tripe. G-7 and Korea aren’t yesterday’s news, unless day trading is your version of investing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Central Banking: It’s Alive!!

In his recent posting on Linked In, entitled, ‘The death of macro-prudential’, Stuart Trow of the EBRD delivered a well-aimed broadside at the pitiable conduct of the Bank of England and elaborated on some of the malign consequences of its catalogue of errors. Without wishing to single him out unduly for criticism for a piece with whose broad outlines I concur,  I see it as a prime example of where even those who are not wholly in thrall to the cult of ‘Whatever it Takes’ often miss the critical features of that cult’s essential evil. Left unaddressed, therefore, I fear this lack can only leave the intellectual soil fertile for a continued harvest of malign outcomes on the part of our clay-footed idols in the central banks.

Where better to start than with the following bold assertion of the author, viz., that ‘…if only policymakers had been allowed to exercise their judgement, crises could have been anticipated and avoided…’?

In my eyes, that heroic presumption of policymakers’ qualities of ‘judgement’ almost vitiates the argument from the off. Irrespective of whether one can be persuaded that Mario Draghi, Jerome Powell, Divus Marcus Carney and the like are the most intelligent, most far-sighted – most impartially Olympian – beings on the planet, the reality is that neither their fervid number-crunching of rows of abstracted, statistical time-series nor the GIGO output of their horribly over-specified macroeconomic ‘models’ can possibly substitute for the particular judgement and uniquely individual preferences of untold millions of men and women interacting, every minute of every day, every where in the market.

No, the best the central bankers can hope to achieve – in finest Hippocratic fashion – is that their own meddling does not send too any wrong signals, conjure up too many wrong incentives, or encourage too many, ultimately self-defeating behaviours among the innocent millions over whom they have been almost divinely-appointed to hold sway and over whom they hold seemingly limitless power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EM FX Plunges: Argentine Peso Re-Crashes, Turkish Lira Tumbles To Record Low

Just hours after Fed Chair Jay Powell implied that ’emerging markets are on their own’, EM FX is re-collapsing…

with Argentina (despite a 1275bp rate hike) and Turkey both crashing to new record lows…

“There is good reason to think that the normalization of monetary policy in advanced economies should continue to prove manageable for EMEs,” Powell said, adding that “markets should not be surprised by our actions if the economy evolves in line with expectations.

So much for the unprecedented Argentina rate-hike and Treasury Minister’s reassuring comments last week…

How much more can BCRA do? They have a scheduled meeting today.

“If the ARS remains under pressure and continues to drift upward we do not rule out further rate hikes at the scheduled May 8 meeting, or even ahead of it,” Goldman Sachs said

Goldman expects central bank to reiterate it is “ready to do more to anchor the currency and inflation expectations (preserve a hiking bias) and to signal that monetary policy will remain very tight for as along as needed”

Bloomberg reports that Argentina’s central bank sold Lebacs due in June in the secondary market at 40%, according to two people with direct knowledge (it used these notes last week to signal commitment to tighter monetary policy).

And the Turkish Lira broke above 4.3 per USD – weakest on record – and is now down 7 days in a row…

 

And as we detailed earlier, as for the indicator that markets should keep an eye on to decide when it’s time to panic, we reported yesterday that Bank of America is keeping an eye on one specific catalyst for imminent contagion: “EM FX never lies and a plunge in Brazilian real toward 4 versus US dollar is likely to cause deleveraging and contagion across credit portfolios.”

 

Fed Chair Powell To Emerging Markets: You Are On Your Own

Over the weekend, when commenting on the ongoing rout in emerging markets, Bloomberg published an article titled “Rattled Emerging Markets Say: It’s Over to You, Central Bankers.” Well, overnight the most important central banker of all, Fed Chair Jay Powell responded to these pleas to “do something”, and it wasn’t exactly what EMs – or those used to being bailed out by the Fed – wanted to hear.

As Powell explained, speaking at a conference sponsored by the IMF and Swiss National Bank in Zurich on Tuesday the Fed’s gradual push towards higher interest rates shouldn’t be blamed for any roiling of emerging market economies – which are well placed to navigate the tightening of U.S. monetary policy. In other words, with the Fed’s monetary policy painfully transparent, Powell’s message to EM’s was simple: “you are on your own.

Arguing that the Fed’s decision-making isn’t the major determinant of flows of capital into developing economies (which, of course, it is especially as the Fed gradually reverses the biggest monetary experiment in history) Powell said the influence of the Fed on global financial conditions should not be overstated, despite Bernanke taking the blame five years ago for the so-called taper tantrum.

“There is good reason to think that the normalization of monetary policy in advanced economies should continue to prove manageable for EMEs,” Powell said, adding that “markets should not be surprised by our actions if the economy evolves in line with expectations.

Powell’s comments were enough to propel the dollar to new highs…

… in the process slamming the EM complex, which as shown below has been a bloodbath over the past month and explains the escalating rout among emerging markets. Powell’s remarks came amid growing concerns about emerging markets and ongoing dollar strength. As shown above, the dollar has soared against most developing-nation currencies in the past month.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Markets Better Prepare for Stagflation

Markets Better Prepare for Stagflation

By all metrics, prices are heating up. But the same can’t be said for economic activity.
Pray for Jerome Powell.     Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Investors better wake up to the growing risk of stagflation. The coming weeks promise to deliver the verdict on how they should be positioned.

By all metrics, inflation is heating up. But it’s not clear the same can said for underlying economic activity.

According to producers, input costs have risen for six of the past eight months. And it’s not just big companies that are feeling pressure. One in four small businesses say they plan to raise prices, a 10-year high, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. Inflation’s persistence will finally begin to trickle through to consumers.

David Rosenberg, chief economist at the wealth management company Gluskin Sheff, recently quipped that investors “better say a prayer for Jay Powell,” the Federal Reserve chair. The deniers will dismiss the suggestion. But Rosenberg is serious, citing the core consumer price index’s March leap to 2.1 percent, a level that breaches the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target.

“There is going to be a price to be paid for last year’s string of wireless-induced 0.1 percent prints which are falling out of the year-over-year math,” Rosenberg explained, referring to the collapse in wireless services that skewed inflation lower in 2017. “I see 50/50 odds of a 3 percent core inflation by year end.”

That would certainly grab the Fed’s attention and — critically for investors — keep the central bank in a tightening mode through the end of the year and into 2019. Notably, no single Federal Open Market Committee member voiced concern about the risk of inflation that is too low, the first time this has occurred since the Fed began making public the views of participants in 2011.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Doug Duncan: Even US Government Economists Predict Trouble Ahead

Doug Duncan: Even US Government Economists Predict Trouble Ahead

Fannie Mae forecasts an economic slowdown by 2019

Doug Duncan is not your average beltway economist.

The chief economist for Fannie Mae is surprisingly outspoken about the troublesome outlook for the US economy. He’s worried about the rising cost of debt service as outstanding credit continues to mount at the same time interest rates are starting to ratchet higher, too.

He predicts the US will enter recession within a year, concurrent with a topping out of America’s real estate market. It wouldn’t surprise him to see the stock market falter, too, as central banks around the world begin a coordinated tightening of monetary policy and — similar to the thoughts recently expressed within our podcast with Axel Merk — Doug expects Jerome Powell to be much more reluctant to intervene in attempt to support asset prices. Having met personally with Powell, Doug thinks the Fed is now happy to see some of the air come out of the Everything Bubble (just not too much and not too fast) — a market change from past Fed administrations:

Our forecast definitely sees slowing economic activity, particularly in the second half of ’19. Part of it has to do with the length of the expansion. Just because an expansion is long doesn’t mean it’s going to end; but they all have eventually ended, and this one is getting pretty old. I think if it’s not the second longest, it’s getting to be the second longest that we’ve ever had shortly.

The tax bill was viewed differently by different parties, but the capital markets initially took that — plus the $300 billion agreement to get past the expiration of government funding plus the budget agreement — they took all those things as inflationary.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Jerome Is The New Janet: Tie, Trousers And Same Old Keynesian Jabberwocky

Jerome Is The New Janet: Tie, Trousers And Same Old Keynesian Jabberwocky

The election of 2016 was supposed to be the most disruptive break with the status quo in modern history, if ever. On the single most important decision of his tenure, however, the Donald has lined-up check-by-jowl with Barry and Dubya, too.

That is to say, Trump’s new Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, amounts to Janet Yellen in trousers and tie. In fact, you can make it a three-part composite by adding Bernanke with a full head of hair and Greenspan sans the mumble.

The overarching point here is that the great problems plaguing American society—scarcity of good jobs, punk GDP growth, faltering productivity, raging wealth mal-distribution, massive indebtedness, egregious speculative bubbles, fiscally incontinent government—-are overwhelmingly caused by our rogue central bank. They are the fetid fruits of massive and sustained financial repression and falsification of the most import prices in all of capitalism—–the prices of money, debt, equities and other financial assets.

Moreover, the worst of it is that the Fed is overwhelmingly the province of an unelected politburo that rules by the lights of its own Keynesian groupthink and by the hypnotic power of its Big Lie. So powerful is the latter that American democracy has meekly seconded vast, open-ended power to dominate the financial markets, and therefore the warp and woof of the nation’s $19 trillioneconomy, to a tiny priesthood possessing neither of the usual instruments of rule.

That is to say, never before in history has a people so completely and abjectly surrendered to an occupying power—even though its ostensibly democratic government already possessed all the votes and all the guns.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What a Hoot: Fed Chairman Powell Says “Growth Has Picked Up”

In his first non-FOMC speech, Jerome Powell stresses growth and jobs.

Inquiring minds are investigating Jerome Powell’s speech on his Outlook for the U.S. Economy presented today at the Economic Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Here are a few key quotes.

  • After what at times has been a slow recovery from the financial crisis and the Great Recession, growth has picked up. The labor market has been strong, and my colleagues and I on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expect it to remain strong.
  • Trends in participation have been more pronounced in the United States than in other advanced economies.
  • There is no consensus about the reasons for the long-term decline in prime-age participation rates, and a variety of factors could have played a role. Research suggests that structurally-oriented measures–for example, improving education or fighting the opioid crisis–also will help raise labor force participation in this age group.
  • The balance sheet reduction process is going smoothly and is expected to contribute over time to a gradual tightening of financial conditions. Over the next few years, the size of our balance sheet is expected to shrink significantly.
  • The FOMC’s patient approach has paid dividends and contributed to the strong economy we have today.
  • My FOMC colleagues and I believe that, as long as the economy continues broadly on its current path, further gradual increases in the federal funds rate will best promote these goals
  • It remains the case that raising rates too slowly would make it necessary for monetary policy to tighten abruptly down the road, which could jeopardize the economic expansion. But raising rates too quickly would increase the risk that inflation would remain persistently below our 2 percent objective. Our path of gradual rate increases is intended to balance these two risks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Doug Noland: No Bailouts Anytime Soon, So Let Those Short Bets Run

Doug Noland: No Bailouts Anytime Soon, So Let Those Short Bets Run

Now that equities are behaving the way they should have since, oh, 2013 – volatile with a pronounced down bias – everyone is wondering how far the crazy will go before the Fed starts buying the S&P 500.

Short sellers, of course, want to know when to close out their at-long-last-profitable bets (seeDavid Einhorn). Cautious investors (see Warren Buffett) with money on the sidelines want to know when to step in and buy. And fully invested optimists (the vast majority these days), are wondering if they should keep buying the dips till the cavalry arrives.

Credit Bubble Bulletin’s Doug Noland has been through at least three such cycles in his career as a short seller, and he’s parsed the testimony of new Fed chair Jerome Powell to reach a conclusion that the shorts will love and the longs will hate. Here’s an excerpt from his latest post:

The new Chairman is not in awe and, at least to commence his term, seems disinclined to pander to the markets. With greed waning, the change in tone was difficult for an uncomfortable Wall Street to ignore. Markets have grown too accustomed to central bank chiefs with an academic view of “efficient” markets – scholars wedded to doctrine that it’s the role of central banks to bolster and backstop securities markets. Powell knows better. As the old saying goes, “he knows where the bodies are buried.” Wall Street fancies the naïve. FT: “‘Powell Put’ Assumption Challenged as Fed Chief Shows Hand.”

I believe Powell recognizes the perils associated with backstopping a speculative marketplace. That doesn’t mean he won’t be compelled to do it. At some point, he’ll have little choice. But it likely means he will not act in haste. The Powell Fed will be much more cautious in delivering market assurances.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fed Chair Admits “US Is Not On A Sustainable Fiscal Path”

Less than a week after Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan sounded the alarm over the level of debt that America’s government is projected to carry, Fed Chair Jay Powell told Congress today that “the US is not on a sustainable fiscal path.”

Treasury yields were already spiking…

Echoing the recent Goldman analysis, which warned that the recently implemented Republican spending plan could lead to an “unsustainable” debt load, Kaplan predicted the US fiscal future beyond 2 years: he said that while the corporate tax cuts and other reforms may boost productivity and lift economic potential, most of the stimulative effects will fade in 2019 and 2020, leaving behind an economy with a higher debt burden than before.

“This projected increase in government debt to GDP comes at a point in the economic cycle when it would be preferable to be moderating the rate of debt growth at the government level,” Kaplan said.

And now Fed Chair Powell is confirming that view.

However, as we pointed out previously, this sudden Fed anxiety comes nearly a decade after the US unleashed its biggest debt-issuance binge in history, doubling the US debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion under president Obama, which was only made possible thanks to the Fed’s monetization of $4 trillion in deficits (and debt issuance).

To summarize Kaplan’s and Powell’s view: when US debt doubled in the past decade the Fed had no problems, and in fact enabled it. And now, it’s time to panic…

And stocks rallied on this headline…

Presumably since any “unsustainable” fiscal collapse would force an ‘independent’ Fed to monetize moar and moar and save the world… again?

 

Haunted by Ghosts of the Old Eastern Bloc

Ridiculous Minutia

Jerome Powell, the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, just completed his third week on the job.  He’s hardly had enough time to learn how to operate the office coffee maker, let alone the all-in-one printer.  He still doesn’t know what roach coach menu items induce a heinous gut bomb.


The perpetually slightly worried looking new Fed chairman Jerome Powell, here seen warily inspecting the Rose Garden at the White House. Everybody wants to know if he has a “better plan” – but there is no better plan, thus no-one has one. [PT]

Photo credit: A. Brandon / AP

Yet across the planet, folks high and low are already telling him exactly how he should do his job.  What’s more, they’re passing advance judgment on things that may or may not happen. For example, the South China Morning Post recently offered the following opinion:

“President Donald Trump may have done Janet Yellen a favor by not giving her a second term as Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.  Her successor, Jerome Powell, may have inherited a poisoned chalice.  The Fed will have to up the pace of U.S. rate hikes or risk accusations of being behind the curve as markets react to signs of rising inflation.”

When Powell showed up to work on February 5, for his first day on the job, the general consensus was that the Fed would raise the federal funds rate three times this year, at 25 basis points – or 0.25 percent – per increase. But now that consumer prices are rising at an annual rate of 2.1 percent, average hourly earnings are increasing at an annual rate of 2.9 percent, and Congress has passed a massive two year budget deal, twitchy economists are questioning if three rate hikes will be enough to keep inflation in check.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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