Fed: Lower your expectations even more
posted at 7:01 pm on November 24, 2010 by Fausta Wertz
The Fed lowers economic expectations for 2011 and the economic forecast isn’t pretty: Moderate growth will continue (it’s currently at 2.5%), the unemployment rate will likely go down to 9% a year from now, and inflation may rear its ugly head if unemployment goes to 6% range – hardly surprising considering how the Fed has been printing money like crazy, including its latest move, the QE2, Ben Bernanke’s brainchild.
QE stands for “quantitative easing”, the cruise-evoking euphemism for what amounts to a second spendulus stimulus. We’re already seeing how well the first stimulus worked, considering how Obama’s argument was that we needed the stimulus to keep unemployment at 8%.
Yeah, right.
The QE2 is that plan to buy $600 billion Treasury bonds in the hope of increasing growth and keep interest rates low. Skeptics like myself see it as paying off your MasterCard with your Visa.
The Fed is not without its dissenters,
the document also leaves little doubt that several Fed officials remain uneasy with the action. Some anticipated that they would have only a “limited” effect on the pace of recovery, arguing the action should only be taken if the odds of deflation “increased materially.”And several “noted concern” that the action “could put unwanted downward pressure on the dollar’s value in foreign exchange markets” or “an undesirably large increase inflation.”
Commodity prices have already increased following the Fed’s QE2 proposal. The move is a deliberate devaluation of the dollar.
One can’t expect the Fed to come up with a more optimistic forecast right now. For starters, the data doesn’t lend itself to a rosy outlook. While unemployment figures may improve on a month-to-month basis, employers have many reasons to continue to remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Also, the Fed’s new quantitative easing plan would come under more fire if they make optimistic predictions that don’t pan out.
How will this economic outlook affect politics in 2011? Paul Mirengoff takes a look and sees the probability of the Democrats moving away from a hard-left agenda.
I hope Paul is correct, but as a pessimist, I also see it as an opportunity for the Dems to justify a hard-left agenda, blaming everything that can possibly go wrong (which it will), on the Republican Congress, right in time for the 2012 election, when unemployment supposedly will be at 8%.
Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog.
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Sweet. How sweet it is.
Finally, Obama’s chikkinzzz are coming home to roost.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:22 PM
This.
When you have to plead incompetence to defend against charges of malfeasance, you know you might be in trouble.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:36 PM
ear relevant…
driguana on May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM
Flush this lying tudd down the drain with the rest of the Obamacrap.
kemojr on May 19, 2013 at 9:34 PM
This was Dan Pfeiffer’s week in the barrel, like Susan Rice he was given the White House talking points and sent on a mission. He really needs to get copies of these tapes and watch them and see how foolish and unbelievable he looked and sounded. The White House is losing the little credibility it still had by sending these shills out every week trying to do damage control. Community organizers make poor leaders.
savage24 on May 19, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Pfeiffer’s statement that the law is irrelevant because the IRS conduct was “outrageous” and “inexcusable”, tells us all we need to know about this administration.
However, the follow-up should have been, “On what standard do you judge their conduct to be outrageous and inexcusable since the law is apparently not an appropriate standard?” (At least in Pfeiffer’s mind.)
What this comes down to is this: “if the Administrative deems something “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such. As we have seen in so many other areas, if the Administrative deems something to not be “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such.
In their mind, the law is – in fact – irrelevant. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous.
It’s not socialism. It’s worse.
EdmundBurke247 on May 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Irrelevant = “What Difference Does It Make?”
jaydee_007 on May 19, 2013 at 10:41 PM
A fitting capstone to Ed’s story about loss-prevention (aka employee theft) and management’s “permission structure” in this post.
(Not to mention the jaw-dropping statements of Eleanor Clift in this one.)
AesopFan on May 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM
I enjoy popcorn and hope it is a long week.
Drill and Fill on May 20, 2013 at 12:41 AM
Hey give Barky a break. He had to get his sorry ass out to Vegas.
tbear44 on May 20, 2013 at 4:49 AM
Of course they sent Pfeiffer out to do the Sunday shows. He was the most senior expendable staff member they had . . .
BigAlSouth on May 20, 2013 at 5:39 AM
Pfeiffer… The guy with the red shirt in the landing party…
Boudica on May 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM
Perfect!
lea on May 20, 2013 at 7:11 AM
Does anybody else remember the campaign in 2008 when Obama defended his lack of administrative experience by saying he was just so smart and tuned in that his instincts were better than experience. Someone needs to dredge up these sound bites and play then with the current line about the government being too large to control and that the White House only knows what it reads in the newspaper.
bartbeast on May 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM
If where the president was during the Benghazi crisis is “irrelevant”, then he wasn’t where one would expect the Commander-in-Chief to be. So, where was he? Was he watching a movie in the residence? Was he bowling? Or was he having a bi-curious outing with his good buddy Reggie Love? If Obama was AWOL, as I suspect he was, it is he who is irrelevant. This entire stinkin’ criminal Obama Regime must go and now!
SpiderMike on May 20, 2013 at 9:31 AM
If this continues all week, it will be ‘O’ himself doing the rounds on the Sunday talk shows – except for Fox, of course. (‘O’ can do everything better than everyone else as he has been known to say.)
He then gets the extra benefit that no one will challenge him like they have begun to do with his minions.
Carnac on May 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM
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