You didn’t ask but we will say it any way. Cheerleaders are often nice to have around, and everyone perhaps needs one of two every now and then.
But cheerleaders like most things in life can become too Pollyanna-like especially when they are agenda or confirmation-seeking driven.
In the Other Voices section of Barron’s this weekend, “Higher Interest Rates Have Done Their Work. Start the Cuts,” we get a cogent reminder: You don’t get what you want. You get what you are.
And what this nation is: Deeply in debt, poorly managed, pathetically governed and on the brink of total chaos.
And what the global economy is, but most especially the U.S., a hodgepodge of over regulation, reckless spending and debt brought to you by Quida Board data junky central banks and their data-paralyzed academic junk heads.
In case you’re wondering this is all about interest rates, risk assets and bringing back the glory days of ZIRP, itself a multigenerational phenomenon like the latest solar eclipse.
“The Federal Reserve, though, could be more restrained, with only two quarter-point rate cuts later this year. The dynamic U.S. economy and robust labor market, along with an inflation rate that has been hard to bring down to the Fed’s 2% target, are tying the Fed’s hands.”
The incompetent Fed tied their own hands. Get real and inflation depending on what strata or moon one is living can hardly be called tamed.
This is a financial dude pushing his own book, shilling to bring back the powerful but fanatically dangerous punch bowl Whoopee Times. Most likely a Biden shill, too.
Even the dude who just set himself on fire recognized and called out the Silicon Valley Bank BS.
“The global effort to relax restrictive policy rates will begin well before inflation moves back toward the 2% targets that many of the central banks maintain. These cuts will require a careful balancing act between restoring growth and not reigniting inflation.
“Central banks, for example, will need to communicate that a gradual reduction of interest rates, amid a slower-than-desired decline in inflation, is necessary to prevent monetary policy from becoming too restrictive.
“Although the restrictive monetary policies of the past two years were needed to restore price stability following the price shocks of the pandemic era, global central bankers can now begin to shape the argument that the rate hikes have achieved their objectives of reducing inflation to tolerable levels and that they need to get their respective economies moving again.
Note the vague “tolerable levels.” Chances are better than good it will not be if the real truth be told the longtime phony 2% benchmark that monkey-see-monkey-do global central banks have foisted on their public for years.
As for the Powell-screwed up version, the Internet crawls almost daily with so-called Fed communication as one regional bank honcho after another pontificates his or her nonsense.
It’s enough to make many sane people want to puke.
Finally, there’s this falling comet conclusion, just close your eyes and wish on a bureaucrat running the alphabet government agency nearest you.
“The time for responsible rate reductions has come. That bodes well for restoring the appetite for risk, encouraging cross-border investment, and fostering growth across the international economy.’