by Geniuses in Charge BALTIMORE, Maryland – Is there any smarter group of homo sapiens on the planet? Or in all of history? We’re talking about Fed economists, of course. Not only did they avoid another Great Depression by bold absurdity…giving the economy more of the one thing of which it clearly had too much – debt. They also carefully monitored the economy’s progress so as to avoid any backsliding into normalcy. And where do we get this penetrating appraisal? From the Fed economists themselves, of course. Bloomberg: “The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decisions to delay interest-rate hikes helped cushion the economic shocks caused by rapidly rising borrowing costs for U.S. companies from late last year through early 2016, according to economists at the New York Fed. “By maintaining the federal funds rate lower, the FOMC managed to substantially offset the effect of tightening financial conditions on the economy,” the authors, referring to the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, wrote in a blog post on the bank’s website on Wednesday.” They’re geniuses. No doubt about it. That’s why they’re in charge and we’re not. They’re the elite. They run the Deep State. They may not pay the piper, but they call the tune anyway.
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Geniuses in Charge
BALTIMORE, Maryland – Is there any smarter group of homo sapiens on the planet? Or in all of history? We’re talking about Fed economists, of course.
Not only did they avoid another Great Depression by bold absurdity…giving the economy more of the one thing of which it clearly had too much – debt. They also carefully monitored the economy’s progress so as to avoid any backsliding into normalcy.
And where do we get this penetrating appraisal? From the Fed economists themselves, of course.
Bloomberg:
“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decisions to delay interest-rate hikes helped cushion the economic shocks caused by rapidly rising borrowing costs for U.S. companies from late last year through early 2016, according to economists at the New York Fed.
“By maintaining the federal funds rate lower, the FOMC managed to substantially offset the effect of tightening financial conditions on the economy,” the authors, referring to the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, wrote in a blog post on the bank’s website on Wednesday.”
They’re geniuses. No doubt about it. That’s why they’re in charge and we’re not. They’re the elite. They run the Deep State. They may not pay the piper, but they call the tune anyway. And good on them! Who knows what prices we might discover if we were left on our own?
Total US credit market debt (black line), Federal Debt (green line),
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Total US credit market debt (black line), Federal Debt (green line), GDP (red line), and the FF rate (blue line) – click to enlarge. |
Four Lost Decades
One of the endearing features of the ruling classes is their abiding faith in their own judgment. Despite inexhaustible evidence that they are bumbling incompetents, the power elite stick to their guns – literally – and to their cushy sinecures.
We are now seven years into the “recovery” supposedly engineered by the PhDs at the Fed. At a cost variously estimated between $4 trillion and $10 trillion, we have now achieved a growth rate that is about half what it was 40 years ago – before the internet and debt-based money allegedly freed the economy from earthly tethers.
Actually, if they do much more work, “failure to make any progress” may quickly become the least of our worries…
And thanks to these custodians of the public weal, 99% of the families in the USA now have less wealth than they did before the crisis of ’08 began. But wait – it gets worse. It is now 45 years since the PhDs took control of America’s money. Over those four and a half decades, how much financial progress do you think the average family has made? Approximately zero.
Yes, the Levy Institute has completed a study. It tells us what we suspected already. Nine out of 10 people in the U.S. have roughly the same real earnings today as they did in the early ’70s.
That makes FOUR LOST DECADES, thanks to the feds, with no advance in the material well-being of the American people (aside from technological marvels) since the new money system came on the scene.
Offenses Against Man and God
Meanwhile, the security elite, too, has proven it cannot be trusted to protect a convenience store, let alone the nation. Trillions have been spent… thousands of people have been killed… offenses against man and God have been committed aplenty (in one case, the Pentagon water-boarded the wrong man 89 times in one month).
Perhaps Sanders and Trump are right; maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at the power elite and how they are running the country. That is the hope that is stirring the voters. But it’s rousing the Deep State to action, too.
“How to defeat rightwing populism” is a headline in the Deep State newspaper of record, the Financial Times, written by Elitist-in-Chief, Martin Wolf. “How to protect the status quo” is his real challenge.
He readily acknowledges the charges against him and other insiders: “The greed, incompetence, and irresponsibility of elites.” This has “brought great populist rage,” he admits.
Photo credit: Clemens Fabry
Establishment mouthpiece and apologist Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economic quack. A vociferous central planning advocate who presumably would have felt right at home in the command economies of the Soviet Bloc (except for the lack of comforts…so we guess Western crony socialism is actually the shtick he personally prefers). The man’s economic ignorance is only exceeded by his unbecoming and completely unwarranted arrogance.
But his prayers are not with the millions of people the power elite has harmed. Instead, his dark hours are tormented by a thought so chilling, so revolting, so unthinkably awful, he cannot sleep. What if, he worries, because of the Deep State’s errors… what if the elite should lose control?
Horrors! “In any country,” he writes, “embrace of the delusions of populism is disturbing.” Yes, especially to the people who caused it!
The initial reaction to a failing statist system… Cartoon by Steve Benson
A Symptom of a Disease
The elite controlled the money, the wars, the policies, and the programs of the last 40 years. It is they who are responsible for $200 trillion of debt worldwide… ISIS… The Bern… and The Donald.
Blame them for ZIRP and NIRP, for $8 trillion worth of income stolen from savers, for the vulgar rich flush with cash, for China’s breathtaking growth and its wobbly tower of debt, for Four Lost Decades, and for America’s longest (and most unwinnable) war.
Mr. Wolf is not concerned about correcting any of these abominations. Instead, he just hopes to manage the problem so the elite stay in control. Trumpism, he claims, “is a symptom of a disease. We must now find more effective ways to cure it.”
Chart by: St. Louis Federal Reserve Research
Chart and image captions by PT
The above article originally appeared as “Who Is to Blame for Trump and Sanders?” at the Diary of a Rogue Economist, written for Bonner & Partners.