What the Fed has done in the past two years has driven us deeper into debt, ... and since I think that is one of the issues ailing the economy now, I don't see going deeper into debt as a cure. |
What the Fed is trying to say is, 'We're getting ready to tighten, but it won't be a rerun of 1994,' ... Of course, they don't know that -- they didn't think 1994 was going to be the way it was. |
What this sets Greenspan up for on Thursday is to say yes, there are tentative signs the economy is slowing down and inflation continues to be well behaved. |
What'll happen is you'll see bond yields spiking higher, the dollar spiking lower and the Fed then having to raise rates, ... At that time, housing will probably start to weaken, stocks won't do well, and our standard of living will go down. |
What'll happen is you'll see bond yields spiking higher, the dollar spiking lower and the Fed then having to raise rates. At that time, housing will probably start to weaken, stocks won't do well, and our standard of living will go down. |
When the fog of war is finally lifted, we may find that economic growth remains weak because monetary policy turns out to be less accommodative than the Fed thought, |
When the fog of war is finally lifted, we may find that economic growth remains weak because monetary policy turns out to be less accommodative than the Fed thought. |
When you print money, it's going to inflate some asset price. Maybe we'll revert to the late 1990s and buy stocks with it. |
When you're the world's banker, you really need to maintain the world's confidence in you and your currency. If you start telling creditors you're going to pay them back in currency that doesn't buy as much, they won't want to bank with you any more. |
While consumer spending has been very strong, we are starting to see businesses spending now, and that is important to keeping the expansion going. Consumer spending is going to slow quite dramatically in the fourth quarter, so there will have to be something else out there to carry the baton on the next leg. |
You can compare it to a corporation that issues stock and bonds and uses the money not for plant and equipment, but to throw a party for the employees. |
You can see a margin squeeze there. Higher prices are making it into the pipeline, but they're not making it to the faucet. |
You can't make it up on volume if you're borrowing at 4.25 percent and lending at 4 percent. |
You're effectively lowering the cost of capital for corporations, and anything to lower that cost will help in inducing more plant and equipment spending. |
You're essentially renting from your bank with an option to buy, |