The FED chickens out, sees two hikes this year.

[Lycanmaster]

Lol, yeah not really surprised...

Yellen basically pulled a "Bank of Japan"; says one thing but does different when the time came...

[msdmoney]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

so they should raise rates with things regressing ?

i got to hand to you amateur economist wannabees , you guys are nuts .

I'm hardly a chicken little, and I will continue to take a long term view on my investments. If anything I invest more during the dips, even if I believe they will be larger dips because you really can't time the market.

But I still hold the opinion that the fed missed the boat on raising rates a couple years ago. They've hit their unemployment targets, and consumer inflation is within targets but they are still paralyzed to act. If they are now unable to raise rates because of global instability then in my opinion they missed the window to start raising them gradually as the economy improved.

And my larger fear is that because of the narrow focus on consumer inflation, they continue to miss other sources of inflation, mainly inflation in asset prices. In addition to measuring the prices of goods and services which the CPI captures, they should also be watching the growth in assets. While the CPI is measuring current inflation, the growth in asset prices marks future consumption. The CPI has started to rise recently, I believe this is a result of the wealth effect from rising asset prices starting to show in the current CPI.

But then again I'm just a Monday morning economist so you can disregard all that.

[mathjak107]

Actually we are below the feds inflation target .when you think about the fact that markets are almost where they were 16 years ago on an inflation adjusted basis there isn't much asset inflation in my opinion. Maybe we averaged 1.70% a year inflation adjusted.

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by andywire

I'm not sure who these people, but it is certainly their right to whine and complain.

It works both ways. Folks can complain about the complainers.

[lieqiang]

Originally Posted by dv1033

It works both ways. Folks can complain about the complainers.

Meta-complainers (tm)

[vision33r]

Originally Posted by FrankMiller

If the Fed raises rates and drives the economy into the ground, how would all those newly-unemployed people earn money to save?

That because our current economy is fraudulently setup and rigged. When you have businesses that game on using cheap money to generate even more cheap money. That's not a healthy economy. They're holding jobs as hostage. Because workers pay taxes, these corporations don't. The game is so rigged.

[BugsyPal]

Would have to research it further but IIRC historically Federal Reserve chairmen have not been big on interest rate hikes during POTUS election years. Certainly not when their personal party choice matches that of incumbent administration. Sort of like the unwritten rule/custom of SC justices not retiring while an opposition president is in office.