On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Finance Committee in the semi-annual Humphrey-Hawkins Testimony and Report to Congress, in which the Fed has to answer as to how the U.S. economy is performing in relation to its dual mandate. Senator Sherrod Brown, the chair of the finance committee, is very knowledgeable and in similar fashion provided strong leadership but unfortunately he cannot censor stupid questions as politicians use the microphone for political posturing. There were many types of “when did you stop beating your wife” questions as if the Senators wished to trap Powell instead of an honest assessment.
Posts Tagged ‘kiwi dollar’
Notes From Underground: Was It the Fool On the Hill?
February 23, 2021Notes From Underground: A Quick Take On Today’s Key Points
March 23, 2017The vote on the Trump health care plan is important only from the perspective of what the Freedom Caucus was promised in return for acquiescing to the desires of the White House. President Trump is desirous of a win, any win and the Freedom Caucus seems to know they have great leverage in the current political scrum. Whatever the House passes the Senate will have home field advantage and last bat so the initial Trump victory will Pyrrhic at best. What was compromised to assuage the conservative wing of the Republican party? How far will Trump have bent to bring this deal to fruition? The strident nature of the Freedom Caucus has been elevated and what value was extracted?
Notes From Underground: What Has the Bank Of Japan Wrought?
November 2, 2014Late Thursday night, the BOJ surprised the markets with an acceleration in the pace of increasing the monetary base. The bank will increase its asset purchases to 80 trillion yen from a previous annual amount of 50-60 trillion yen. The bank will also purchase ETFs and J-REITs at an added 3 trillion yen a year, a massive amount of increase of its balance sheet. In Japan the BOJ‘s program is referred to as QQE for it is both a quantitative and qualitative program. As it is pointed out, the BOJ will wind up owning 75 percent of the JGB market as banks and pension funds unload BONDS onto the ultimate buyer of last resort. When Japan was in a deflationary economy, owning BONDS made perfect sense as negative prices gave rise to REAL HIGHER YIELDS.