Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Yellen: ‘Recovery Not Yet Complete’

by JASmius

Translation: Recovery not yet existent:

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday that the economic recovery is not yet complete and for that reason the Fed intends to keep providing significant support to boost growth and improve labor market conditions.

Translation: The public is figuring out that the economy is in a permanent, artificially engineered depression and for that reason the Fed intends to keep debasing the dollar to re-anesthetize the hoi palloi, like giving another "hit" to a drug addict.

In delivering the Fed's semi-annual economic report to Congress, Yellen said the Fed's future actions will depend on how well the economy performs. She says if labor market conditions continue to improve more quickly than anticipated, the Fed could raise its key short-term interest rate sooner than currently projected. But she said weaker conditions will mean a longer period of low rates.
Labor market conditions?  There are almost a hundred million of us that have been forced out of the labor force.  Labor market conditions suck ditch water.  Monkeying around with interest rates to encourage even more private sector indebtedness won't change that, aside from making it even worse.  And she knows damn good and well that she's not raising interest rates now, a year from now, or ever, because that would explode the federal deficit even more than it has to date, collapse the federal government and what's left of the U.S. economy right along with it, and everybody except for party apparatchiks like Janet Yellen will be doing their Bob Cratchit imitations.

Of course, that collapse is coming anyway.  Barack Obama has simply, for whatever reason, not given her the green light to let 'er rip.

I don't know whether it's amusing or tiresome that Yellen is persisting with the fairy tale that the 2.9% GDP shrinkage in Q1 2014 was due to "temporary" factors rather than, shall we say, "fundamentally transformative" ones, or her "downplaying" of the recent spike in the Consumer Price Index.  If I were a member of the Senate Banking Committee, I don't know whether I'd have dozed off or swallowed my face in frustration.  Perhaps when Idaho's Mike Crapo takes the gavel from the retiring Tim Johnson (D-SD) in January, we can "fundamentally transform" these pro forma dronefests back into the serious grillings of Regime minions that they're supposed to be.

Bottom line still is that you can't lower rates below zero, where they've been as long as Barack Obama has been in power, to no economic effect.  The U.S. economy is flatlined and shall remain that way until such time as he can be overthrown.  Janet Yellen's job is to yank on the piano wire and make it periodically sketch a smart, and maximally public, salute.

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