Tag Archives: Jerome Powell

Federal Reserve Chairman Appears on 60 Minutes – Why Now? by Michael Krieger

Posted on March 12, 2019 | Leave a comment

Michael Krieger pierces the veil of Fed Chairman Powell’s PR. From Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

One of the most famous, and prescient, financial cartoons in American history is the above depiction of the Federal Reserve Bank as a giant octopus that would come to parasitically suck the life out of all U.S. institutions as well as free markets.

The image is taken from Alfred Owen Crozier’s U.S. Money Vs Corporation Currency, “Aldrich Plan,” Wall Street Confessions! Great Bank Combine, published in 1912, just a year before the creation of the Federal Reserve. 

Last night, the current high priest of money printing, asset bubbles and inequality, Jerome Powell, appeared on 60 Minutes. Interviewer Scott Pelley mentioned the fact that such discussions are rare and noted the last time a Fed head appeared for such a chat was Ben Bernanke back in 2010.

As such, what I find most interesting about this event wasn’t Powell’s boilerplate, bureaucratic propaganda about how the economy’s doing fine and how much central bankers love average Americans, but why he and the institution he heads felt a need to do this now.

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Fire the Fed? by Ron Paul

Posted on January 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

Central banks are an idea whose time never should have come. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

President Trump’s frustration with the Federal Reserve’s (minuscule) interest rate increases that he blames for the downturn in the stock market has reportedly led him to inquire if he has the authority to remove Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Chairman Powell has stated that he would not comply with a presidential request for his resignation, meaning President Trump would have to fire Powell if Trump was serious about removing him.

The law creating the Federal Reserve gives the president power to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board — including the chairman — “for cause.” The law is silent on what does, and does not, constitute a justifiable cause for removal. So, President Trump may be able to fire Powell for not tailoring monetary policy to the president’s liking.

By firing Powell, President Trump would once and for all dispel the myth that the Federal Reserve is free from political interference. All modern presidents have tried to influence the Federal Reserve’s policies. Is Trump’s threatening to fire Powell worse than President Lyndon Johnson shoving a Fed chairman against a wall after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates? Or worse than President Carter “promoting” an uncooperative Fed chairman to Treasury secretary?

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Posted in Banking, Currencies, Debt, Economy, Government, Politics

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The Fed IS the Ugly Truth, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on January 6, 2019 | 1 comment

The back and forth and massive publicity given to what the Federal Reserve obscures a central question: should the Fed even exist? From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

This Fed thing just keeps going on, and it needs to stop. There is nothing in the discussion about the Federal Reserve these days that has any value other than it provides even more proof that the Fed has killed off the most essential elements of what once made the US economy function. All markets, stocks, bonds, housing markets, all price discovery, all murdered. No heartbeat. Pining for the fjords.

And instead of addressing that, and I’m not even talking about addressing fixing what is wrong, all I see is neverending stuff about Jay Powell using, or not using, terms such as “patient” or “accommodative”. Like any of it means anything coming from him and his ilk. Other than for making ‘investors’ a quick buck. Like a quick buck could ever trump the survival of entire market systems.

People discussing whether Jay Powell is doing a good job all miss the point. Because Powell should not be doing that job in the first place. The Fed should not have the power to manipulate the US economy anywhere near as much as it does. Because that power is perverting America like nothing else, and the US economy will never recover as long as the Fed holds that power. Is that clear enough? Do we understand that at least?

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Posted in Banking, Business, Debt, Economy, Government

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Don’t Get Distracted By The Trump/Fed Soap Opera – The Crash Will Continue, by Brandon Smith

Posted on November 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

He’s probably right. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.com:

At the beginning of 2018 I wrote extensively on what was likely to happen under the administration of Jerome Powell, the new Federal Reserve Chairman. In my article ‘New Fed Chairman Will Trigger A Historic Stock Market Crash In 2018‘, published in February, I predicted that the Fed would continue interest rate increases and balance sheet cuts throughout the year and they would knowingly initiate a crash in equities.

To be clear, this was not a very popular sentiment at the time, just as it wasn’t popular when I predicted in 2015 that the Fed would launch interest rate hikes instead of going to negative rates in order to start a catalyst for economic crisis. The problem some people have with this concept is that they just can’t fathom that the central bank would deliberately crash the system. They desperately cling to the notion that the Fed and other central banks want to keep the machine rolling forward at any cost. This is simply not true.

The claim is that the banking elites are “required” to keep the system propped up in a state of reanimation because they are reliant on the system to provide capital and thus “influence.” The people that assert this argument don’t seem to understand how central banks operate.

As most liberty activists should know by now, central banks are essentially a legally protected counterfeiting scheme. Using fractional reserve banking at a ratio that is secret, central banks create their own capital from thin air, and they can infuse capital into international banks at will when it suits their purposes. There is no “profit motive” for the banking syndicate. They can print the cash or digitally conjure it anytime they wish, and they can use it to purchase tangible assets before their printing diminishes the buying power of the currency, passing price inflation on to regular citizens.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Debt, Economy, Financial markets, Governments, Politics

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Powell ain’t Yellen, by the Northman Trader

Posted on February 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The timing of the recent stock sell off was propitious from one point. It came as Yellen exited, so she won’t be blamed, and as Jerome Powell became the Chairperson of the Federal Reserve. You can’t blame it on him, he probably hadn’t found the coffee machine when the plunge began. So nobody at the Fed can be blamed! From the Northman Trader at northermantrader.com:

When police try to solve a crime one of the key tasks is to determine who benefits from the crime. The beneficiary of a crime is not necessarily the perpetrator, but motive goes a long way to narrow the circle of potential suspects.

Who benefitted from this sudden aggressive sell-off aside from anyone who was positioned short?

Certainly not hedge funds that capitulated long in January with their highest long exposure in 3 years literally right before the sell-off.

And certainly not retail that went full balls long on the aura of optimism:

This trend continued right into February 1 following the FOMO train. Remember Ray Dalio?

Now this:

Panic selling with record outflows. In record time no less:

From greed to panic in less than 2 weeks.

People got hammered big time as price gave back months of gains in a matter of days:

That’s a lot of trapped supply and will present a challenge for future rallies.

So benefits from all this? One man. One man in particular:

Jerome Powell.

From his vantage point the timing of all this has to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. And from Yellen’s position it’s perfect too actually. But it is Powell I want to hone in on in particular.

To continue reading: Powell ain’t Yellen

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The Next Maestro, by Michael Lebowitz

Posted on February 1, 2018 | 1 comment

There was a time when most people didn’t know who the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was. From Michael Lebowitz at realinvestmentadvice.com:

The following article emphasizes that the perceived economic prosperity of recent decades is largely the result of political expediency. Those in charge of monetary policy have repetitively failed to act in the best interests of the public in an effort to either avoid criticism or preserve their individual status. While often ignored, this dynamic is crucial to understand to form longer term expectations for asset prices.

“I’m making records, my fans they can’t wait

They write me letters, tell me I’m great” – Joe Walsh

The modern day printing of digital dollars from thin air, literally from nothing, brings to mind a Latin phrase “ex nihilo, nihil fit” which means out of nothing, nothing comes. If that statement is true, and a moment of reflection surely produces the logical conclusion that it is true, then what do central bankers hope to accomplish by means of conjuring currency from, well, nothing? What does it further say about setting interest rates at less than nothing? If nothing can come from nothing then there is no solution in the idea that by printing dollars and inflating asset prices you can create something (a durable organic recovery). Although the net result for the economy will be nothing, the net result of those actions for individuals appears to be a redistribution of wealth in the economy. In the end, it becomes clear that the purpose of and reason for the exercise is not the good of the general public but rather advocacy of large financial institutions, political expediency and hubris. If that were not the case, then why would the Federal Reserve need to hire a veteran lobbyist (former Enron and Clinton administration employee) in navigating the use of their powers in the months following the financial crisis?

Hilltop Houses and Fifteen Cars

There is something god-like in the idea of creating something out of nothing – especially money – which fits with the progression of status among Federal Reserve (Fed) members. The idea that their stature and judgement is beyond reproach has been in play for some time.

To continue reading; The Next Maestro

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Posted in Banking, Economy, Government, Uncategorized

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The Last Fed Chairman? by Ron Paul

Posted on January 29, 2018 | 1 comment

In response to the title question: we can only hope. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

Last week the Senate confirmed Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chairman by a vote of 84-13. This is in contrast to the contentious debates and closer votes over Janet Yellen’s confirmation in 2014 and Ben Bernanke’s confirmation for a second term in 2010. Powell benefited from a perception that the economy’s recovery from the 2007-08 meltdown proves that the Fed is a capable manager of monetary policy. However, the perceptions of economic recovery and Federal Reserve competence are both far from the truth.

The economy may seem to have recovered, but the recovery is not built on a firm foundation. Instead it rests on Fed-created bubbles in areas such as automobile sales, credit cards debt, student loan debt, stocks, and even a new housing bubble.

The most dangerous bubble is the government debt bubble. The Fed facilitates deficit spending by monetizing the federal debt. The desire to enable Congress’ spending addiction is a major reason why the Fed cannot significantly raise interest rates, as increasing rates could increase federal debt payments to unsustainable levels. This may be one reason why President Trump has reversed course and endorsed low interest rates. Of course, all first-term presidents want low interest rates since they believe the low rates boost the economy and thus help them win reelection.

One of the issues Powell will face is increasing challenges to the dollar’s world reserve currency status. China is pressuring Saudi Arabia to price oil in Chinese yuan instead of in American dollars. China and other countries may take other steps, such as halting purchases of Treasury bonds, that could weaken the dollar. The threats to the dollar’s world reserve currency status will increase as concerns about US government and private sector debt, as well as resentment over US militarism and protectionism, grow.

The dollar still maintains its reserve currency status not because the dollar is strong, but because other countries’ currencies are weak. However, unless the US gets its economic house in order, that may not long be the case.

To continue reading: The Last Fed Chairman?

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Posted in Banking, Cronyism, Debt, Economy, Government

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Party While You Can – Central Bank Ready To Pop The ‘Everything’ Bubble, by Brandon Smith

Posted on January 14, 2018 | 2 comments

A new chairperson of the Federal Reserve sets the state for a thunderous financial market crash. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.com:

Many people do not realize that America is not only entering a new year, but within the next month we will also be entering a new economic era. In early February, Janet Yellen is set to leave the Federal Reserve and be replaced by the new Fed chair nominee, Jerome Powell. Now, to be clear, the Fed chair along with the bank governors do not set central bank policy. Policy for most central banks around the world is dictated in Switzerland by the Bank for International Settlements. Fed chairmen like Janet Yellen are mere mascots implementing policy initiatives as ordered.  This is why we are now seeing supposedly separate central banking institutions around the world acting in unison, first with stimulus, then with fiscal tightening.

However, it is important to note that each new Fed chair does tend to signal a new shift in action for the central bank. For example, Alan Greenspan oversaw the low interest rate easy money phase of the Fed, which created the conditions for the derivatives and credit bubble and subsequent crash in 2008. Ben Bernanke oversaw the stimulus and bailout phase, flooding the markets with massive amounts of fiat and engineering an even larger bubble in stocks, bonds and just about every other asset except perhaps some select commodities. Janet Yellen managed the tapering phase, in which stimulus has been carefully and systematically diminished while still maintaining delusional stock market euphoria.

Now comes the era of Jerome Powell, who will oversee the last stages of fiscal tightening, the reduction of the Fed balance sheet, faster rate increases and the final implosion of the ‘everything’ bubble.

As I warned before Trump won the election in 2016, a Trump presidency would inevitably be followed by economic crisis, and this would be facilitated by the Federal Reserve pulling the plug on fiat life support measures which kept the illusion of recovery going for the past several years. It is important to note that the mainstream media is consistently referring to Jerome Powell as “Trump’s candidate” for the Fed, or “Trump’s pick” (as if the president really has much of a choice in the roster of candidates for the Fed chair). The public is being subtly conditioned to view Powell as if he is an extension of the Trump administration.

 

To continue reading: Party While You Can – Central Bank Ready To Pop The ‘Everything’ Bubble

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Posted in Debt, Economy, Financial markets

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