First, why was Janet Yellen summoned to the White House to meet with President Obama and Vice President Biden? The most ostensible reason is PROBABLY to get the Fed’s view on the economic impact of Trump and Bernie Sanders. Is the anger in the land a result of stagnant wages and is there any policy impact the White House could pursue without distorting the economy? Is fiscal stimulus a possible positive response and would the Fed be receptive without immediately raising rates? There are no certain answers to why Yellen went only conjecture. But one thing that caught my attention was the headline in today’s Financial Times: “Lew Urges IMF to Get Tough on Exchange Rate Manipulators.”
Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
Notes From Underground: Prelude, Nothing To Hide (In the Spirit of Stairway to Heaven)
April 12, 2016Notes From Underground: All My Words Come Back To Me
November 29, 2015Sometimes world leaders and CEOs ramble and say things that reverberate for longer than intended. Two things in particular are echoing in the canyons of poorly thought-out ideas: President Barak Obama’s comparing the military potential of ISIS to A HIGH SCHOOL JV BASKETBALL TEAM. Then, there’s the CEOs OF AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE AND HOSPITAL INDUSTRY, ALONG WITH THE BIG PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, APPEARING REGULARLY AT WHITE HOUSE CONCLAVES TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, PROCLAIMING AS THEIR RATIONAL: IF YOU ARE NOT AT THE TABLE THEN YOU ARE ON THE MENU.
Notes From Underground: All the Rumors Fit to Print in an Algorithmic World
June 8, 2015Woke Up Got Out Of Bed, Dragged A Mouse Across My Desk … I read the News Today Oh Boy …
French Official:Obama Said Strong Dollar Is ProblemU.S. Official:Obama Didn’t Say Strong Dollar Was A ProblemWhite House Denies Obama Said Strong Dollar A Problem
These are the type of fabricated headlines that are meant to create volatility in a world in which algo headline readers react to key words: OBAMA, STRONG DOLLAR, PROBLEM. Did President Obama actually make a passing comment about the U.S. dollar? We don’t know except that the president himself denied making such comments at his G-7 press conference. It is poor journalism for media outlets to cite UNNAMED officials in distributing information that is certain to have market moving impact, but in today’s world of “first move” advantage there is a rush to get any headline to a Twitter feed regardless of validity. Did Obama make such a comment? Maybe in this context.
Notes From Underground: German PMI Was Lower …. Did NSA Have The Number Early?
July 1, 2013It wouldn’t be Notes From Underground if we didn’t ask the most obvious and ridiculous question. It may be the subject of global comedians but the NSA‘s overreach is not a laughing matter for what it really shows is that in the guise of National Security, even a democratic republic leans toward political repression. This is similar to the McCarthyism that grew from what Michael Parenti called “the Anti-Communist Impulse.” Everything becomes an excuse for the government to pry and the danger for all lovers of freedom is that once governments delve into every nook and cranny of life, the end result is always disastrous. It is not about Democrat or Republican for the Democrats will not always be in office.
Notes From Underground: Erskine Bowles For U.S. Treasury Secretary = A Big Stock Market Rally
November 15, 2012The election is over. It’s time for leadership and decisive action. Yes, there are winners and losers and promises to be kept. Six billion dollars was spent on elections in total and the money given to support candidates is not charity but an effort to purchase some modicum of influence. No problem with that for that has been the game since the birth of the republic and long before that in other political entities. If the “fiscal cliff” and its potential impact is as serious as some opine then leadership is needed to set the course of real action. President Obama, if you believe that the fiscal crisis is the most urgent problem, you will choose Erskine Bowles as your Secretary of Treasury because he has the ability to reach across party lines and get to rational levels of compromise. Mr. Bowles has the respect of party leaders and, most importantly, his plainspokenness is needed to get the American people to understand the rudiments of the looming financial debacle.
Notes From Underground: Will Parliament’s Dissolution Become the Beginning of the Solution?
November 14, 2012Last night , Prime Minister Noda decided to call for new elections in Japan and that automatically ends this session of the DIET. The elections will take place in a month and the present unpopularity of the DPJ means that the LDP is the favorite. It seems that Noda was willing to call elections on the promise that the new parliament would work toward some type of election reform. Hopefully some of the readers of NFU will help fill in the specifics about the issues of election reform. The YEN was sold off on the news of Parliament’s dissolution because the present strength of the YEN and its negative impact on Japanese manufacturing is certain to be an issue. The LDP’s leader, Shinzo Abe, has been very vocal about the BOJ/MOF doing more to raise inflation in the Japanese economy and to be more aggressive in efforts to weaken the YEN. While the YEN weakened, the NIKKEI index held its overnight gains even as the S&Ps, DOW and NASDAQ were knocked lower following President Obama’s press conference.
Notes From Underground: Elections Are Over; Time To Focus On …
November 7, 2012Give the pollsters their due. They were virtually perfect in the predictions of electoral outcomes. Can the electoral algos now reduce all that data and tell us the policies that will be produced to deal with the problems that plague the U.S.? The Obama victory was greeted by a market selloff as the investment world woke up to the possibility of tax increases and spending cuts leading to a recession and decreased profits. The elections were widely anticipated as the bookies in London and worldwide had predicted. I am left scratching my head, wondering what caused the steep decline in the U.S. equity and commodity markets? The EURO currency was not sold hard enough to think that the Greek situation was the catalyst. Besides, the Greek parliament passed the austerity budget tonight. There is no way that Europe will not provide the Greeks with the promised funds as the outcome would not be worth the 30 billion euros that are in question. If the Obama victory and coming government standoff should have led to a selloff in the BONDS for one would have to be insane to purchase U.S. bonds priced at FED manipulated risk levels.
Notes From Underground: Rajoy’s Party Retains Power in Galicia
October 21, 2012In what was a very slow new weekend the most significant story is that Spanish PM Rajoy’s political party held on to power in the PM’s home state of Galicia. This was considered to be an important test for Rajoy for if his support in his traditional support base had turned against him, there would be no chance that the PM would have proceeded down the road of further austerity. Now Señor Rajoy may be emboldened to surrender to the demands of German-imposed CONDITIONALITY so as to receive the proposed bailout from the ESM. This should be short-term bullish for the EURO as it will remove one of the obstacles that was blocking a massive dose of liquidity into the Spanish financial system. The trade-off game of financial support for enacting more austerity should help the markets as near-term fears of a Spanish collapse should be postponed.
Notes From Underground: Draghi Lit the Torch; Now Let the Games Begin
July 31, 2012Wednesday brings the FOMC announcement on interest rates. Can the FED really ease more at this juncture? It seems that the financial world has come to believe that Draghi’s comments from last week were intended to prod the Bernanke-led FED to promote a greater monetary response to a drastically imploding debt crisis in Europe. I don’t believe that Chairman Bernanke will be pushed into further monetary action–outside of some kind of extended language–for the FED wants to keep the onus where it belongs … the POLITICAL POLICY ARENA. If Bernanke were to get aggressive at this juncture, the controllers of fiscal policy would get an election pass and the REPUBLIC WOULD BE ILL SERVED. The pundits are all opining that the FED’S non-action will result in a dramatic sell off of RISK. I think that is a wrong read as a passive statement will put pressure on Congress and the White House to actually take the lead and find some compromise to the FISCAL CLIFF SYNDROME.
Notes From Underground: FOOD FOR THOUGHT–GRAIN EXPORTS FORCE MAJEURE
July 11, 2012First: The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has put off an immediate decision on the constitutionality of the ESM, so the market has some breathing room and FINANCE MINISTER SCHAEUBLE has some time to define exactly what the Merkel government has signed on to. The EURO held steady today as the attention turned to the U.S. and the FOMC minutes.