http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aIEC12YR7MDc&refer=economy
Video is in related media links near top on right hand
side.. The Ed Hyman one
Might be worth considering the economist' s "report" also
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9747967
The eventual outcome is somewhere in this stuff
🙂
I've seen the clips and Hyman is not saying anything major. He is double talking imo.
He says slow down but not a recession.
He mentions Financial Crises a lot. Say it will get worse. Suggest people move into the stock markets as Fed will manage the financial crises by reducing interest rates to 4 % in a measured way because they have now defeated inflation. He says he is bullish.
He says developing economies is bad news.
What is he really saying? - Fed will reduce rates to 4% so pile your money back into the stock market. Yeah right. You go first then dude I'll follow you next year.
Let me put this to the readers.
Interest rates always rise in increasing frequency towards the tops of the economic cycle. Hence, growth has peaked.
Interest rates always fall in a down turn in increasing frequency and desperation in a recession until the trough is reached.
This tells you we have reached the tops. So cut in rates = down turn in the cycle.
Typical monetarists totally exclude taxation or demand side management. I've mentioned this umpteen times. Dichotomy in US economy. Inflationary pressures with major slow down - Stagflation. The dispute is because economists sit on one camp or another. ie Economic slow down - or inflationary pressures. You not supposed to have them similtaneously... Or are you? If this is intentional it's fantastic management cause you couldn't engineer this if you tried to.
The twin defecits must be addressed. THEY HAVE GOT TO REDUCE INTEREST RATES TO STIMULATE BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT AND RAISE TAXES AT THE SAME TIME.
US has spent $600bn dollars on a war with no subtantial increase in output or productivity => Inflationary pressures.
The US has maintained low taxation and interest rates to fund their cheap borrowing to finance the war and Bush's tax breaks for oil giants and all other interested republican parties. So there are excess pockets of wealth and dimished pockets laden with debt.
Another $100bn is being requested to maintain war in Iraq. With high interest rates cost of maintaining budget defecits rise. Fall in dollar raises inflationary pressures.
This same old simple monetarist dribble about ok inflation is under control, housing market is suffering let's reduce rates is FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC. They can try and talk up the economy as much as they like.
I really don't care for the reputation of anyone. As in trading past performance is no indicator of future gains.
Unless the US economy tackles the 7%+ budget and BoP defecits, they can talk until the cows come home. It ain't happenin dudes. That's my message to Hyman and Ben.
One last comment. In a boom when interest rates rise at the early stages, it is intrepreted as - oh the growth must be good and strong for the Fed to control it and yes companies can handle it and we don't want inflation. Yes good move up.
Once expectations kicks in, dropping the rates will confirm the gravity of the situation. It will be intrepreted as - oh the turn must be bad and worse than expected for the Fed who has all information in advance of everyone else to reduce rates. Sell sell sell.
They can try and talk up the market as much as they like once expectations kicks in it's very difficult to turn peoples & business expenditure plans.
I go with the Economists 2nd option. Down turn coming plan for it.
Here is an extract from Bens speech.
Although this episode appears to have been triggered largely by heightened concerns about subprime mortgages, global financial losses have far exceeded even the most pessimistic projections of credit losses on those loans. In part, these wider losses likely reflect concerns that weakness in U.S. housing will restrain overall economic growth. But other factors are also at work. Investor uncertainty has increased significantly, as the difficulty of evaluating the risks of structured products that can be opaque or have complex payoffs has become more evident. Also, as in many episodes of financial stress, uncertainty about possible forced sales by leveraged participants and a higher cost of risk capital seem to have made investors hesitant to take advantage of possible buying opportunities. More generally, investors may have become less willing to assume risk. Some increase in the premiums that investors require to take risk is probably a healthy development on the whole, as these premiums have been exceptionally low for some time. However, in this episode, the shift in risk attitudes has interacted with heightened concerns about credit risks and uncertainty about how to evaluate those risks to create significant market stress. On the positive side of the ledger, we should recognize that past efforts to strengthen capital positions and the financial infrastructure place the global financial system in a relatively strong position to work through this process.