Retail Sales, slowly going down … With retail stocks surging on the back of the any-minute-now recovery (justified by the might of the Federal Reserve printing press), we thought it perhaps useful to consider just how great things are in the retail sales space. Given the non-stop accelerating rise in the equity prices, retail sales must be accelerating or must have turned up green-shoot-like? Well not so much.

As the chart shows, while retail sales (ex-food) is still rising modestly YoY, it is doing so a decelerating pace (as income growth stagnates and discretionary income slumps). But for now, all we must believe is the market knows best,until, 2008-like, it doesn’t.

Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles

The Fed blowing bubbles … FDR already tried this disastrous crap, and all it did was result in huge debt and no economic situation at all. Why are we repeating FDR’s failures? Printing money does what, isn’t that the stuff of turd world country dictators? It sure isn’t what free people do by any means.

Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.

The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.

Although many were up in arms when the Fed said it would buy $600 billion in government debt outright for the previous round, QE2, all seems quiet about the magnitude of QE3 because it doesn’t come with huge up-front total price tag. But by year’s end the Fed’s balance sheet could hit $4 trillion.

It is not surprising the Fed has decided to hand the American people more of the same failed policies. But it is disappointing. We know what the real solution is: allow the marketplace to work. Allow entrepreneurs the chance to create instead of stifling innovation with arbitrary regulations. Allow interest rates to rise to equal the risks in the economy. Allow bad debts to be liquidated so we can build on a firm foundation. Stop printing money to benefit the government and big banks. Restore sound money to the economy and the American people. Sound money is the bedrock for prosperity and the best check on big government and crony capitalism.

More here …

But that’s not Obama, who is our control freak pretty boy hollyweird pressy… Round and round we go, adrift on a endless sea of fake government numbers and nowhere to go ….

Pump, Pump, Pump: Fed Keeps Interest Rates Low, Continues Bond Buying Program

There will come a time when interest rates must go up. And then we will have to pay, pay, pay, for all of Obama’s reckless spend, spend, spend. It’s just not sustainable. If you raise taxes it kills the economy. The only choice is cut, cut cut!

Someone tell the Fed, you cannot print your way out of debt.

The Federal Reserve held fast to its ultra-accommodative monetary policy Wednesday, solidified by what board members described as an economy weakened by fiscal policy.

With the Fed now openly warning that there may actually come a time when the ‘flow’ stops; the most recent Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) report has some concerning statistics for those change-ridden hopers who see a smooth Fed exit, deficit-reduction, and blue skies ahead.  While they are careful not shout ‘sell’ in a crowded bond market; hidden deep in the 126 page presentation are two charts that bear significant attention. The first shows what TBAC expects (given the market’s expectations) to happen to interest rates in the US as the Fed ‘exits’ its QE program (taper, unwind, hold) – the result, the weighted-average cost of financing for the US government will almost triple from around 1.6% to around 4.3% over the next ten years. But more problematic is that even with CBO’s rather conservative estimates of the growth in US debt over the next decade the USD cost of financing will explode from around $205bn (based on TBAC data) to over $855bn. Still convinced the Fed can exit smoothly?

But with the sheer size of debt now (and growing), that will balloon the absolute cost of servicing US debt to over $850bn per year …

And just what happens to all those retirees – who need yield – who are being herded into stocks when Treasuries pay over 4.5%? Would seem bullish for bond flows … think Japan… It worked for them, right.

This is technically called bankrupt country.

Goldman’s Hatzius: 10 Questions for 2013

So if 2013 doesn’t work maybe the recovery summer 2014 will be better. And then there is always, recovery 2015, 16 and 17 to come. And you thought it was only the millionaires and billionaires that would pay, hah, low information fools.

QE whatever. Wishful thinking futurecast from Goldman Sachs …

Some short excerpts from a research note by Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius:

As Confidence In Dollar Wanes, Over A Dozen States Push For Gold As Legal Tender

“The legislation is about signaling discontent with monetary policy and about what Ben Bernanke is doing,” which seems confirmed by the recent shift in Texas to bring its gold back from the New York bank warehouse. The new measures would give “people the option of using money that won’t lose any purchasing power to inflation,” one supporter of the bill explained, with another adding, “there is a fear that the government, or Bernanke in particular and the Federal Reserve, is pursuing a policy that will lead to the collapse of the dollar.”

The U.S. Constitution bars states from coining money and also forbids them from making anything except gold and silver coin tender for paying debts. Advocates say that opens the door for the states to allow bullion as legal tender.

Everybody knows the inflation monster is coming, do you get it yet? Didn’t Cyprus warn you, it’s all their money anyway, they can do anything they want with it.

The Dow Hits An All-Time High! Translation: A Bubble Is Always Biggest Right Before It Bursts

Fools market …

Reckless money printing by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has pumped up the Dow to a brand new all-time high.  So what comes next?  Will the Dow go even higher?  Hopefully it will.

In fact, it would be great if the Dow was able to hit 15,000 before it finally came crashing down.  That would give all of us some more time to prepare for the nightmarish economic crisis that is rapidly approaching.

As you will see below, the U.S. economy is in far, far worse shape than it was the last time the Dow reached a record high back in 2007.  In addition, all of the long-term trends that are ripping our economy to shreds just continue to get even worse and our debt just continues to explode.  Unfortunately, the Dow has become completely divorced from economic reality in recent years because of Fed manipulation.  All of this funny money that the Federal Reserve has been cranking out has made the wealthy even wealthier, but this bubble will not last for too much longer.

What goes up must come down.  And remember, a bubble is always biggest right before it bursts.

(Read More….)

Economy Shrinks … Obama & Pals Blame Republicans

Another ‘who woulda thunk it’ moment: The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth and possibly providing incentive for more Federal Reserve stimulus. The economy shrank from October through …

And here the Republicans wanted to avoid the blame, by being nice.

Get outta here! You mean with businesses fretting over the unknown cost of ObamaCare, with taxes being raised for almost every American, and government spending continuing to spiral out of control that our economy is contracting?

Shocking!

 

QE4 Is Here: Bernanke Delivers $85B-A-Month Until Unemployment Falls Below 6.5%. The US Must Go Down So The World Can Go Up!!!

Ben Bernanke continues to make history at the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the FOMC announced more quantitative easing at a rate of $85 billion a month for an extended period of time. The Bernanke Fed has also modified its guidance, noting its ultra-accommodative stance will remain in place until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5% and inflation projections remain no more than half a percentage point above 2% two years out.

QE4 is here. Only a few months after announcing what had been dubbed QE3, an open-ended $40 billion a month program to buy up mortgage backed securities (MBS), the FOMC decided to extend its asset purchases in 2013 as Operation Twist expires.

Read more at forbes.com …

Poor Ben he will be up to QE infinity if he thinks that is going to lower unemployment. This is just populace pablum. No body hires because they can borrow cheap money. It simply doesn’t work that way. And this Obama stooge should know that.

Illiterate Obama voters about to get a lesson in how it works …. Bend over.

Fed Pumps

Can the Fed do anything except print money and inflate the money.

Sound dollar goes out the window… Participation rate, Obama encourages that with food stamps.

Watch the video, as the Fed is trying to turn the USA into Greece. This is truly breathtaking for a central banker. You pay for this in Jimmy Carter hyperinflation. None of this increases market demand for new products.

“Recognise that, as the Federal Reserve keeps on trying to stimulate the economy by printing more money, that there’s a cost to that,”

said Mr Romney in remarks at a fundraiser.

First off why will this work when QE1 and QE2 Failed niserably? What market demand is stimulated by this action.

Don’t the American people deserve answers… Our food stamp president doesn’t know beans about real economic growth.Nor or jobs created by a bank.

First rule of bussi9ness, you need market expansion to grom jobs,

You need Romney to do that not a juvenile choom wagon smoker. And this makes that clear, the Fed was bought.

 

Fed Announced Yesterday, Start THe Printing Presses, re-Elect Obama…Oil near $100. Thanks a lot, Fed!

Yesterday he did it. What he told Congress he would not do… What a laugher. You thought he was bound by what he says…..So much for that.

Your government under Obama no longer feels bound to simply tell the truth to the American people… read that again. and see if you are OK with that?

Oil prices strike four-month peaks on Federal Reserve stimulus move, the oil exporters are not going to sit still while the Fed prints mon… What are you going to do. .. As the Fed prints new cash your bank deposits dissolve before your very eyes.

In 1979 the Arab Oil embargo … happy times trying to find gas… you were only allowed to buy it on odd-even days, and the limit was 5 gallons at a time…

Oil prices hit four-month highs on Friday after the Federal Reserve launched a new round of economic stimulus(money printing) aimed at lifting growth in the world’s largest crude consumer.

The market also won strong support from ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

In London morning deals, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November soared to $117.95 a barrel, touching the highest level since early May.

Errr maybe that is the wrong approach …

The price of crude oil is getting dangerously close to $100 a barrel again. It hasn’t been above that level since May. The euro has strengthened against the dollar as of late, partly due to hopes that the European Central Bank will step in and buy more Spanish bonds and also because of rising expectations for QE3. If the Fed turns on the printing presses so that Bernanke can take yet another helicopter ride, that could further weaken the dollar and push the prices of oil and other commodities higher.

This is all bad news as the Fed “eases down the U.S. consumer… to the levels of the rest of the world. Did you know poverty levels in the USA are so much higher than the rest of the world. That has to change… and that is Obama’s plan for America in a nutshell. Diminish the USA… Third worlder’s view of America’s exceptionalism.