Daily Commentary: Fed policy
The Fed is in a tough spot. They want to do more. Things are unravelling in Europe and the slowdown in Brazil, India and China is well-advanced. While the jobs outlook has improved in the US, there is still considerable slack in labor markets. With interest rates already at zero percent what does the Fed do, 3 months into a presidential election year? The easy answer as far as I am concerned is to do nothing. And that’s what they have decided to do. Call it a push.
And remember, we are already in April. If the Fed is just sitting on its hands now, then it has to be even more cautious about getting "too political" as each month passes. For this reason alone, I don’t anticipate QE. I could be wrong going forward but so far the Fed has not signalled QE. In my view, things need to really fall apart or gain momentum before the Fed decides to make a move.
That’s it. Here are the links.
Should America continue to insist on controlling the selection process, it is the World Bank itself that would suffer
Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has always taken a keen interest in tax planning. From the beginning, loopholes were a key part of Amazon’s ability to undercut rivals on price. When setting up the company, Bezos even considered basing it on an American Indian reservation near San Francisco to exploit state tax loopholes.
Elderly man takes life outside Athens parliament after saying in note that he did not want to pass debts on to his child
Online retailer’s British operation owned by company in Luxembourg which receives all payments for books, DVDs and other goods
Bottom Line: The Fed remains in a holding pattern; more QE is dependent upon a meaningful deterioration in the outlook and/or a flattening out of the unemployment rate. Otherwise, it remains a debate about when the first tightening will occur, and for the moment that event is still far in the future.
On October 28, JPMorgan didn’t buy Corzine’s story, either. Having been a risk manager myself, I believe Barry Zubrow, JPMorgan’s chief risk officer, did exactly the right thing. He called Jon Corzine to get him to verify that the funds belonged to MF Global and that none of the money was customer money. Zubrow, an outsider, was well aware of the possibility that customer funds had been transferred. It’s implausible that Corzine wasn’t aware of the potential impermissible transfer of customer funds when he gave the authority to make the transfer. By doing its job, JPMorgan removed Corzine’s ability to credibly deny knowledge of the potential problem.
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