The Big Fed Thread

[interestrateripoff]

Fast-Food Workers Strike, Arrested Across America: The Unseen Costs Of The Minimum Wage

"Get up! Get down! Fast-food workers run this town!" were the chants from fast-food workers in over 100 cities across America today, as empowered by President Obama's explanation of 'fairness', they demanded a $15-per-hour minimum wage amid strikes, rallies, and acts of civil disobedience. Many fast-food chains and independent restaurants have said that a $15 hourly wage would lead to big price increases on their menus or make it impossible to eke out a profit, adding that they "believe that any minimum wage increase should be implemented over time so that the impact on owners of small and medium-sized businesses." Police arrested 19 workers in NYC and several dozen were placed in handcuffs in Detroit and organizers strongly denied unconfirmed fast-food industry accusations that some workers were being paid $250 to $500 by the union to strike. While the economic reasoning for a minimum-wage hike has been dead-and-buried, we try one more time to explain the hidden costs of the minimum wage.

Strange central bankers want higher prices but business says it can't make a profit with higher prices............

[interestrateripoff]

ROFL! Crap Jobs Number, Futures +10?

This is your stock market.

This is your stock market on heroin.

This is your market's heart, addicted to a woman that should be in prison, and a clown-car stuffed with 535 critters that have ignored violations of their own laws, and in fact cheer them on, for 100 years -- and thus should also be in prison.

Note: The "benefit" from being on heroin is temporary and the intermediate and longer-term impact is catastrophic.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services and in health care.

That's a crap number.

What's worse is that the unadjusted number from the household survey is negative 618,000!

You want more bad news? This month 1,343,000 people left the labor force, presumably because they were unable to find work.

Go jobless recovery!!!

[zugzwang]

Evidence of a pick-up in wage inflation after five trillion dollars of QE? Thought not.

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-08/you-missed-1-trillion-return-agreeing-with-fed-naysayers.html

If you agreed with all the academics, billionaires and politicians who denounced Federal Reserve monetary policy since the financial crisis, you missed $1 trillion of investment returns from buying and holding U.S. Treasuries.

That’s how much the government bonds have earned for investors since the end of 2008, when the Fed dropped interest rates close to zero and embarked on the first of three rounds of debt purchases to resuscitate an economy crippled by the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The resilience of Treasuries represents a rebuke to the chorus of skeptics from Stanford University’s John Taylor to billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, who predicted the Fed’s unprecedented stimulus would lead to runaway inflation and spell doom for the bond market. It also suggests investors see few signs the five-year-old expansion will produce the kind of price pressures that would compel Fed Chair Janet Yellen to side with the bank’s hawkish officials as they consider when to raise rates.

[zugzwang]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-08/you-missed-1-trillion-return-agreeing-with-fed-naysayers.html

Yellen's not bothered by inflation. We're stuck in a global depression, there isn't any. If she puts up rates it's because they're afriad the financial system is once again dangerously over-leveraged.

[interestrateripoff]

How The Fed "Mysteriously" Eliminated $7 Trillion In US Debt

Anyone looking at the Federal Reserve's own data set, that provided with the generous "free" funding of the US taxpayer by way of the St. Louis Fed's FRED database, will notice something quite welcome, if magical: total US debt held by the public - that which is not part of intragovernment holdings, read Social Security - has mysteriously collapsed from $12 trillion to $5 trillion. Somehow, with nobody looking, the Fed managed to reduce US total debt by $7 trillion.

[interestrateripoff]

Banks to Pay Price for Choice to Be Big, Fed’s Tarullo Says

You mean they'll be broken up???

[interestrateripoff]

Fed Weighs Change to Rate Guidance for Added Flexibility

Federal Reserve officials are considering whether to alter their guidance on the likely path of interest rates to give them more flexibility to react to changes in the economy.

I thought they "predicted" the changes in the economy and were pre-emptive in policy decisions?

[Democorruptcy]

The Fed are thinking about shutting the empty stable's door.

The Federal Reserve has created a committee led by Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer to monitor financial stability, reinforcing its efforts to avoid the emergence of asset-price bubbles.

Joining Fischer on the Committee on Financial Stability are Governors Daniel Tarullo and Lael Brainard, according to the central bank’s latest Board Committee list.

Fed officials want to ensure that six years of near-zero interest rates don’t lead to a repeat of the excessive risk-taking that fanned the U.S. housing boom and subsequent financial crisis

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-12/fed-s-fischer-leads-committee-watching-for-asset-price-bubbles.html

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-11/why-us-interest-rates-can-never-rise-1-chilling-cbo-chart

It’s not just homeowners who have to worry about rising interest rates, the Federal government might soon get a taste of its own medicine.

With the Fed doing all it can to stimulate inflation, increases to interest rates are taking a front seat amongst borrowers’ fears. From the admittedly partisan Republican Senate Committee on the Budget comes this report outlining how federal interest outlays will dovetail with other expenses in the future.

To summarize:

The U.S. gross federal debt currently stands at $17.548 trillion, and net interest payments to our creditors are the fastest-growing item in the budget. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the nation will spend $233 billion on interest payments. By the end of the budget window in 2024, however, CBO forecasts that interest payments will nearly quadruple to an astonishing $880 billion. Every dollar spent paying our creditors is a dollar wasted—money for which we get nothing in return. Interest payments threaten to crowd out every other budget item.

To put the $880 billion, single-year interest payment in perspective, here is what we currently spend on other budget items:

• Federal Courts – $7.4 billion

• Department of Education – $56.7 billion

• Secret Service – $1.8 billion

• Food Inspection – $2.3 billion

• Census Bureau – $1.0 billion

• Border Patrol – $12.3 billion

• National Parks – $3.0 billion

• NASA – $17.6 billion

• Centers for Disease Control – $7.1 billion

• Federal Prison System – $6.9 billion

• Workplace Safety Inspections – $0.9 billion

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement – $5.6 billion

• FDA – $2.6 billion

• Federal Highway Budget – $40.4 billion

• 
  

  Coast Guard – $10.0 billion

• 
  

  Small Business Loans – $0.9 billion

• 
  

  Veterans’ Health Care – $55.3 billion

• 
  

  FBI – $8.3 billion

Every debt incurred today will be paid off in the future. The graph above may be shocking to some, but it’s only a very small part of the picture. This is just interest on debt, and doesn’t even include the costs of repaying the principal. Of course, the principal never really gets repaid as the government just borrows afresh to paper over its old debts, but the interest must be covered lest savers stop lending money to the government.

Nor is this only a concern for the future. Last year the government spent more on interest payments (c. $700 bn.) than it did on Medicare (a little under $600 bn.).

Luckily interest payments don't matter.....

[TheCountOfNowhere]

The Fed are thinking about shutting the empty stable's door.

comedy gold

[dances with sheeple]

comedy gold

They are also thinking about picking up all the dried sh*it they can find and running across the fields to try and stuff it back into the bolted horses.

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-13/inflation-watch-how-much-1-used-get-you

[interestrateripoff]

US industrial production falls

Slowdown in car manufacturing blamed as US industrial output misses forecasts

[interestrateripoff]

September 18 Speech--Chair Janet L. Yellen
The Importance of Asset Building for Low and Middle Income Households
At the Corporation for Enterprise Development's 2014 Assets Learning Conference, Washington, D.C. (via prerecorded video)
8:45 a.m. ET

http://www.federalreserve.gov/whatsnext.htm

So the poor are poor because they can't afford to build assets. Yellen about to explain how people on low incomes can magically acquire income producing assets?

[Venger]

September 18 Speech--Chair Janet L. Yellen

The Importance of Asset Building for Low and Middle Income Households

At the Corporation for Enterprise Development's 2014 Assets Learning Conference, Washington, D.C. (via prerecorded video)

8:45 a.m. ET

http://www.federalreserve.gov/whatsnext.htm

So the poor are poor because they can't afford to build assets. Yellen about to explain how people on low incomes can magically acquire income producing assets?

Through all the excess, bailouts-help etc, you cling onto some hope the authorities will allow rebalancing.... but apparently not. I hope there is more to this - as in "try to save a little a month towards future lower house prices in a HPC"... but I doubt that will be in the speech.

Janet Yellen Trolls America's Poor: Tells Them It Is Important To Get Rich

09/16/2014

[..]In other words, the Fed Chairman has some words of encouragement for the tens of millions of Americans who live at or below the poverty level, including that threatened with extinction class, affectionately known as "the middle."

Her message? It is important to build assets, or said otherwise... get rich.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-16/janet-yellen-trolls-americas-poor-tells-them-it-important-get-rich

[interestrateripoff]

Fed Decision Day Guide: Considerable Debate on Forward Guidance

Here’s what to look for when the Federal Open Market Committee releases its policy statement and new economic projections at 2 p.m. today in Washington and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen holds a press conference at 2:30

[Venger]

Isn't today Yellen day?

Hilsenrath, the reporter/journo who is around Fed people, yesterday gave his views, which seemed to have immediate market impact.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-16/fed-water-boy-hilsenrath-carries-fomc-gatorade

As I read it yesterday, and watched the webcast, he doesn't think the Fed will move too much away from "a considerable time" theme on interest rates... even though both Fed hawks and doves have reportedly gotten concerned about 'considerable time' for different reasons. If he is correct, perhaps she'll say something similar, like not in the 'forseeable future'. (I had hoped they'd be ready to allow a bit of volatility back into the market though, instead of cuddles). Reckons they'll be more focused on the taper, for today, and October supposed end.

Taper side? $10bn?

UK at 7:30pm. (?)

Live feed: http://www.ustream.tv/federalreserve

Watch the live FOMC press conference Wednesday September 17, 2014 at 2:30 p.m. with the Chair of the FOMC, Janet L. Yellen.

[interestrateripoff]

Fed renews zero interest rate pledge, restates concern on labour market

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday renewed a pledge to keep interest rates near zero for a "considerable time" and repeated concerns over slack in the labour market, standing firm against calls to overhaul its policy statement.

As the debt expands it just makes it harder for the junkies to accept higher rates.

[interestrateripoff]

The Fed's Laughable GDP "Forecast" Just Got Even Funnier

What in January 2012 was a 2014 GDP forecast range of 3.7%-4.0% collapsed to 2.1%-2.3% in June (because clearly the Fed couldn't possibly forecast snow in the winter), and three months later is now 2.0%-2.2%. In short, a 43% forecasting error. That is all.

[sPinwheel]

So are the FED more hawkish or not?

[bubbleturbo]

Not

[R K]

The Fed's Laughable GDP "Forecast" Just Got Even Funnier

What in January 2012 was a 2014 GDP forecast range of 3.7%-4.0% collapsed to 2.1%-2.3% in June (because clearly the Fed couldn't possibly forecast snow in the winter), and three months later is now 2.0%-2.2%. In short, a 43% forecasting error. That is all.

You can smell the zero gold fear can't you.

[The Masked Tulip]

Alibaba is going to go mental then.

[Venger]

Another Fed warm-cuddly operation, or not?

FED FOCUS-Wall Street sees holes in Fed's new policy-tightening plan
By Reuters
Published: 19:39, 18 September 2014

[..] The new cap on what had been an unlimited facility raised fears that once the tightening cycle begins, and demand rises, financial markets could face unusual volatility on days that firms scramble for short-term collateral.

The Fed's policy-setting committee "will ultimately hold its nose and expand its RRP operations ... to a trillion dollars or more if that proves to be necessary to maintain a firm floor under rates," predicted Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC.

The central bank seems to be "downplaying the idea that the RRP facility might someday become the centerpiece of the Fed's operating procedures," he said.

The new limits are effective Sept. 22, and analysts said volatility could erupt eight days later when the quarter draws to a close. Some noted that the Fed aims to gather information on how participants will react on Sept. 30.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/18/usa-fed-tightening-idUSL1N0RJ1JG20140918