The Real Story Behind the Fed’s “Soft Landing” Narrative
2024-06-13
The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) yesterday left the target policy interest rate (the federal funds rate) unchanged at 5.5 percent. The target rate has now been flat at 5.5 percent since July of 2023—as the Fed waits and hopes that everything will turn out fine. In his prepared remarks at Wednesday’s FOMC press conference, Powell continued with the soothing message he has generally employed at these press conferences over the past year. The general message has been one of moderate but sustained growth, and an economy marked by “strong” employment trends and moderating inflation. Powell then combined this view of the economy with a general narrative on Fed policy in which the FOMC will hold steady until the committee believes that inflation is returning to the
Government Employee Pensions Are Underfunded. Taxpayers Will Make Up the Difference
2024-01-20
People aren’t messing with their 401(k)s enough, according to the The Wall Street Journal. It used to be “Set it and forget it.” Now, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Sindreu, if you forget it, you might miss it.
Inspired by a BlackRock thought experiment which included perfect knowledge, Sindreu looked backward between 2020 and the present at a person making yearly changes (moving funds to the previous year’s strongest sector) which would have generated a compound annual return of 55 percent, nearly four times more than buying and holding the Standard and Poor’s 500 (or setting and forgetting). For the period of 2016 through 2019, the gain would have been 30 percent, twice the index.
Basing a new strategy on back-of-the-envelope testing back just seven years seems dubious. It
Rising Interest Rates and the “Great Reset” Bubble
2024-01-19
Even though many deny it, the “Great Reset” exists, referring to a set of ideas that range from “stakeholder capitalism” to “wokeness” and “fourth industrial revolution” to “transhumanism.” It is effectively popularized especially through the World Economic Forum. The fight against viruses and epidemics and particularly the politically driven move away from fossil fuels to “save the global climate” are probably the most visible footprints of the Great Reset agenda.
In a nutshell, the Great Reset is a politically planned overthrow of the global economic and social system—a restructuring—and this most audacious endeavor has gained strong momentum in the wake of the central banks’ extremely low interest-rate policies in recent years. This finding is anything but surprising for those aware of