Ok, I couldn’t resist the obvious joke. It seems that former New York Fed President Bill Dudley penned an op-ed for Bloomberg in which he elevated the Fed into an actor in the U.S. political process. The message that Dudley initially tried to convey is one that NOTES has actually expressed concerns: That President Trump has trapped Chair Powell by using TARIFFS as a mechanism to bludgeon the FOMC into lowering rates to counter any of the negative impact from trade frictions unleashed on the global economy. Dudley admonished Powell to play the role of Bartleby the Scrivner in Melville’s short story, that when it comes to cutting rates in response to financial implications of the China/U.S. trade war, simply say “I choose not to.”
Posts Tagged ‘AfD’
Notes From Underground: Angie, Where Will It Lead Us From Here?
December 9, 2018Germany chose a new CDU party leader to replace Angela Merkel. Membership chose Merkel’s hand-picked choice Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known as AKK. This is a very poor choice as it reflects a continuation of the status quo at a time that the traditional German ruling parties are struggling to maintain voter support. These are turbulent times for Germany, Europe and the world and Chancellor Merkel has proven to be too staid to deal with a world threatened by a populist upheaval.
Notes From Underground: Rome Is Alive With the Sound of Music
October 31, 2018There was singing in Rome when Angela Merkel announced that she is stepping down as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union. The two most recent German regional elections has solidified the unmitigated truth about the weakened condition of the German chancellor. For the last six years, I have been highly critical about Merkel’s policies. The bumbling French President Nicholas Sarkozy out-maneuvered Merkel in 2011 as he prevented then-Bundesbank President Axel Weber from leading the ECB.
Notes From Underground: German Elections. The Sound of Complacency Shattering?
September 24, 2017I will start tonight’s BLOG with two very good comments from a long time reader and contributor GREEN AB who hails from Germany. Green has always provided great insight and though we don’t always agree I have great respect for his perspective. On Thursday he posted a very prescient forecast about today’s election and Sunday he followed with a post-election thoughts.
Notes From Underground: Old Friends Sat On A Park Bench Like Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel)
April 10, 2016
I’ve been staring at this image and keep thinking about the three living Fed Chairmen that sat on the stage April 7 and the fourth that was teleported from Washington, D.C. I was thinking about the replies to weak questions posed by the moderator and better questions from the audience. I thought about the question I would have asked first. I would have asked each Fed Chair what they had thought about the role of GOLD in the post-Bretton Woods global financial system. Ben Bernanke famously opined that he didn’t understand GOLD but seemed very comfortable visualizing a role for BITCOIN. Yellen has never openly stated her concern about the barbarous relic. Back in the 1960s, Alan Greenspan wrote a serious paper for the Ayn Rand society on the important role of GOLD in a global system and more important for the impact of GOLD for a democratic capitalist world.
Notes From Underground: If …
September 30, 2014Tonight I’m paying homage to Rudyard Kipling’s great poem, “If.” It’s a reminder of what the fourth quarter holds for global investors, and particularly traders with a much quicker reaction:
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about,don’t deal in lies,Or being hated,don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good,nor talk too wise
Notes From Underground: Who’s COO COO For CoCos?!?!?
August 18, 2013The newswires over the weekend were quiet except for the continued mounting tensions in Egypt. At this juncture It is too difficult to measure the impact of the political crisis on global financial markets as the situation is “fluid” and rumors run rampant. There is talk that the U.S. is cancelling scheduled military manuevers with the Egyptian army over displeasure with the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Soon after that rumor, news from Russia was that President Putin was putting the Russian military resources to the backing of the Egyptian army, reflecting the “fluidity” of the situation and Russia again reminding the world that the U.S. is not the only game in town. Even the Saudi foreign ministry has come out in its support of the Egyptian military in its efforts to combat the “forces of global terrorism.” I return to Yra’s first rule of global finance: “Money is FASCIST and craves stability.” While all this uncertainty clouds the political scene in the Middle East, the only constant is that the Europeans are meeting to decide what actions to take against the Egyptian military, so any sense of certainty about Egypt is probably a false algo-driven headline or TWEET.