Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Lost

Members of the FOMC are mortals, just like most of the rest of us (sorry Alan). No one says the job is an easy one. We don’t judge them on that. But members like it or not and for better or worse are anointed by the world markets; this is reality. Thus anointed, they should act appropriately.  That means - don’t give away too much of the decision-making process. When you do that as a central banker you learn the old rule all over again, and you learn it the hard way – familiarity breeds contempt. Volker knew this, Greenspan perhaps, but the rest – not a chance.

Yellen has so far proven to be everything we felt she would be – a failure. In a few short weeks she has taken the Fed out into the desert and she/it will wander there, lost, for perhaps years to come. 

The job at the FOMC is tough, yes, but then to undertake new endeavors for which one is thoroughly untrained is simply foolhardy. When academics attempt to reason with the market crowd, they are 100% asking for trouble. They never get it right.  And then when after their first stumble they try again and over-correct, they make a mess.

Ah, so many lessons unlearned by these elites, it boggles the mind.

I could go back home tomorrow to the family ranch/homestead in the California Central Valley, and throw a dart and hit a neighboring rancher, any rancher, then take that rancher and sit him down at the Fed and that rancher would put us on a trajectory to economic health because that rancher, like most of his kind, knows when to hold still and when to shut up.

Yellen tried to communicate with the crowd; she got a response she did not expect and so yesterday she tried to set the record straight. After scaring the pants off the herd on her first attempt, Ms. Yellen yesterday promised to keep rates low for a long time. She even trotted out individual stories in good ‘ol Queen for a Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YW-uv3Ibm8  fashion. There was one Jermaine Brownlee, part time plumber now full time body lotion person. There was a Doreen Poole and finally a Vicki Lira, a printing plant worker who lost her job when the plant was closed (What? A plant closed?).

None of these experiences were unique to a free society where things do change, nor were they at all instructive.  Two of the stories however were entertaining as it turns out Brownlee was convicted recently of heroin possession and Poole was convicted of felony theft.  I see.  Maybe that’s why employers are not all over them.

First, Yellen makes the mistake of trying to embrace and appease the market crowd. Then to prove to all non-believers that she has done her homework, she throws up criminals as examples of victims of the US economic machine. 

We are lost.


Robert Craven

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