It's the moral hazards

[laughing dog]

I should add that if low interest rates were a sign of loose policy, we would be seeing very high inflation now. Nevermind that the notion was debunked a long time ago, but we've had low interest rates now for so long that this is a fantastic test of what they mean about tightness/looseness of policy. The fact that inflation has not ramped up while interest rates have been chronically low demonstrates that monetary experts have been right all along and low rates do not mean money is loose.

People were crying hyperinflation back in 09 because of the low interest rates and monetary base expansions. These people now need to accept that they were wrong. Sub-2% inflation over the last several years is a categorical demonstration that policy has not been loose

It depends on what one means by "loose". The economy still has significant slack. If the economy picks up and there is no siphoning off of the monetary base, inflation will most likely pick up.

 

[wufwugy]

It depends on what one means by "loose". The economy still has significant slack. If the economy picks up and there is no siphoning off of the monetary base, inflation will most likely pick up.

Yep. If (more like "when") that happens, policy would then be loose and would need tightening in order to keep inflation from rising too high. Just because the current monetary policy's effects are tight doesn't mean that under other conditions they wouldn't be loose.

As somebody who was an avid reader of Krugman before I'd ever read anything from monetarists, the analogy that I had to come up with to understand why we can call current monetary policy tight even though it has gone through large expansions and easing is with the same logic that Krugman always used to explain why the stimulus was too small. He basically said something like this: while a 800B stimulus looks very expansive relative to other dollar amounts from history, relative to the 2T (or whatever it was) shortfall in GDP, it is small and arithmetically not enough to recover.

The same applies to monetary stimulus. If the economy runs at 5% NGDP and the Fed engages in policy that generally keeps it there (neither loose nor tight at that point), but then NGDP drops to -2% and in response the Fed doubles the monetary base and runs QE, which results in NGDP rise to 3% and stays there, is policy tight or loose? I don't see how the answer is anything other than "tight". The Fed may have loosened policy relative to earlier policy, but relative to the economy as a whole, it's tight. Maybe it's the wording that's throwing it off, but basically when NGDP is only 3%, it means that money is tight

 

[boneyard bill]

wufwugy writes:

That's right, they're not bubbles in the first place. They look exactly like smaller "bubbles" that have already "popped", but they're not "popping" because the bubble concept is not accurate. This much should be obvious since bubbles are only declared retroactively. It's basically religion. Captain Hindsight is not science

No. There is a way to distinguish a bubble from a boom. A boom is characterized by real economic growth. When Bernanke claimed that there was no real estate bubble, he claimed that there was real growth in the economy that was spurring housing prices. He failed to recognize the bubble because he couldn't distinguish monetary growth from real growth, not because the characteristics of a bubble weren't there. Likewise, Janet Yellen claimed, prior to the bubble bursting, that the only indicator of a bubble was the failure of rents to rise in line with housing prices. That alone should be a pretty good indication that you have a bubble, but she didn't consider that enough. The problem is you can't always go by M1 or M2 in deciding what the money supply is at any given time because lots of financial instruments can be used as virtual money for at least a short period of time. The problem in identifying bubbles is in identifying what is going on in the underlying economy not in any failure to identify the rising asset prices.

Monetary experts do not agree with your view of interest rates and looseness/tightness of policy.

Who are these monetary experts, and what do they say exactly?

The data shows that central banking and monetary manipulation has been able to thwart "bubbles" and their "popping" by smoothing NGDP growth and that a lack of monetary manipulation makes "bubbles" and their "popping" all over the place.

Again, where is this data, and where are these examples of "popping" bubbles? I wouldn't disagree that monetary manipulators can pop bubbles if they choose to, but not without negative consequences. Greenspan deliberately popped the dot.com bubble arguing against the "irrational exuberance" of the stock market. But the consequences were a recession which Greenspan then countered with the "irrational exuberance" of the real estate bubble.

There's a reason why the 19th century was rife with skyrockets and collapses and structural rebalancing, and there's a reason why modern economies with well-functioning central banks (*cough* Australia *cough*) are performing better than virtually any other economies on record and they don't have any bubbles or any pops

All of the ups and downs of the 19th Century that I am aware of can be explained in terms of government interventions at some level. The Australian central bank in recent years has been famous for its tight monetary policies. If you have to "pop" a bubble, you've already let things go too far. The correct policy is not to let them form in the first place.

 

[boneyard bill]

I should add that if low interest rates were a sign of loose policy, we would be seeing very high inflation now. Nevermind that the notion was debunked a long time ago, but we've had low interest rates now for so long that this is a fantastic test of what they mean about tightness/looseness of policy. The fact that inflation has not ramped up while interest rates have been chronically low demonstrates that monetary experts have been right all along and low rates do not mean money is loose.

People were crying hyperinflation back in 09 because of the low interest rates and monetary base expansions. These people now need to accept that they were wrong. Sub-2% inflation over the last several years is a categorical demonstration that policy has not been loose

Figures don't lie but liars can figure. The problem is that we have had high inflation. If we calculated inflation today the way we did in the '70's, the inflation would be in the high single digits. We've replaced the old method with a newer method that is much, much more subjective so government analysts can produce just about any inflation rate they want.

But the real difference with the '70's is that this inflation is global. In the '70's we still had a balance of trade surplus, but now we have a big balance of trade deficit so we export our inflation because the dollar is still the reserve currency. What we've had is a period of global inflation which has definitely pissed off the BRICS countries. Turkey is suffering from very high inflation right now. So is India. Brazil has had to raise interest rates to 10% to try to keep inflation from reaching double-digits. China is also suffering from this. Russia is not because they do not trade much with the US.

The Fed has also tried to fight inflation by expanding the monetary base big time but at the same time paying interest on excess reserves so that the banks won't lend the money out. This is like driving around town with one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brake. Not surprisingly, it doesn't get you anywhere very fast.

The question here is not the ability of monetary manipulators to manipulate. The question is their ability to manipulate effectively. So far the results of that have not been very good.

 

[Petrel]

If we were to find an offshoot of socialism that worked, we would find that it is different enough from Soviet communism to the point that rules of resource allocation are adhered to. Communism tried to defeat supply and demand, and it lost

You don't find systems of human organization - you conceive, implement, experiment and build on them. All democracy tends gradually toward socialism; all democracies are periodically hijacked by special interests. The slogans may vary, the logo may change, the useful idiots they co-opt may wear different uniforms, but the objective is constant: to concentrate wealth and power in the fewest possible hands.

The question here is not the ability of monetary manipulators to manipulate. The question is their ability to manipulate effectively. So far the results of that have not been very good.

That`s a point of view. Check the bag-mens bonuses last year.

 

[boneyard bill]

Yep. If (more like "when") that happens, policy would then be loose and would need tightening in order to keep inflation from rising too high. Just because the current monetary policy's effects are tight doesn't mean that under other conditions they wouldn't be loose.

As somebody who was an avid reader of Krugman before I'd ever read anything from monetarists, the analogy that I had to come up with to understand why we can call current monetary policy tight even though it has gone through large expansions and easing is with the same logic that Krugman always used to explain why the stimulus was too small. He basically said something like this: while a 800B stimulus looks very expansive relative to other dollar amounts from history, relative to the 2T (or whatever it was) shortfall in GDP, it is small and arithmetically not enough to recover.

The same applies to monetary stimulus. If the economy runs at 5% NGDP and the Fed engages in policy that generally keeps it there (neither loose nor tight at that point), but then NGDP drops to -2% and in response the Fed doubles the monetary base and runs QE, which results in NGDP rise to 3% and stays there, is policy tight or loose? I don't see how the answer is anything other than "tight". The Fed may have loosened policy relative to earlier policy, but relative to the economy as a whole, it's tight. Maybe it's the wording that's throwing it off, but basically when NGDP is only 3%, it means that money is tight

No, no, no. I'll grant that it's difficult to figure out Fed policy at the moment because it is somewhat contradictory, but loose monetary policy and low interest rates go together. The Fed has direct control over only one interest rate. That is the discount rate which is what it charges for short-term loans. The discount rate greatly influences the federal funds rate which is what banks charge each other for short term loans. Obviously, a bank is going to have to charge no more than the discount rate if it expects to be able to lend money to other banks.

But the Fed does not have direct control over long term rates. However, it can influence long-term rates through its "open-market operations." It can buy long-term treasury bonds. Usually, the benchmark interest rate is the yield on the 10-year treasury bond. That's the low rate. Longer term treasury bonds and corporate bonds are likely to require a higher yield. So when the Fed buys 10-year treasuries, the price goes up and the yield goes down. That reduces interest rates pretty much all across the board. Note that this process is automatic. I can say, "The price of bonds went up," or I can say, "The yield on bonds went down." The two statements express the same thing. The one does not cause the other. They are the same process.

But how does the Fed buy bonds? It's goes into the market and buys the bonds from the banks, and it then credits the bank's reserve account at the Fed. So if the Fed buys $100 million in bonds from a bank, their reserve account increases by $100 million. At a reserve requirement of 10%, that would enable the bank to lend out $1 billion. The current reserve requirement for most banks is about 8%.

So when the Fed buys a trillion dollars in bonds, it has expanded the monetary base by that amount and that creates the potential for an increase in the money supply by over $10 trillion. But that hasn't happened. Why not? Because the banks were, and still are insolvent. So the point of that bond buying was to flood the banks with liquidity under the assumption that they wouldn't lend it all out. But to help encourage the banks not to, Bernanke also began paying interest on excess reserves which is something the Fed had never done before.

So what was the strategy? 1. Flood the banks with liquidity to guard against a run on the banks. 2. Buy bonds to lower interest rates and therefore push housing prices back up because much of the insolvency of the banks rests on the underwater mortgages that they are carrying. 3. Buy many of these bad mortgages from the banks at book value instead of market value to allow the banks to regain solvency more quickly. In other words, the Fed has taken these toxic assets off the banks books and added them to the Fed's books. 4. Pay interest on excess reserves to allow the banks not too lend too freely on their excess reserves and therefore avoid inflation.

It hasn't worked but that is another story. The question here is, "Is this a loose monetary policy or a tight one? Or is it in between?" I would say it is definitely a loose monetary policy because interest rates are being kept low by money creation by the Fed rather than simply due to an abundance of money due to economic growth.

The result of this is that the Fed is creating bubbles all over the place. Treasury bonds are in a bubble. Real estate is in a bubble. The stock market is probably in a bubble. Any increase in interest rates will send these assets plummeting and burst these bubbles. That is the result of "loose" monetary policy. Interest rates have been at record lows. The ten-year was as low as 1.4% at one point. That doesn't even cover the Fed's phony inflation figure so effectively it was a negative rate in real terms. It has risen by about 1% in the past year, but keep in mind that this rate is historically in the 5-6% range. So if this rate were return to something close to normal, the Wall Street banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, pensions funds, and even the Fed itself would become insolvent.

That is the effect of loose monetary policy, and it will probably be coming home to roost in the near future although what exactly will trigger the downward spiral is uncertain. But this policy is also weakening the dollar overseas. The dollar has held at about 80 on the dollar index for a long time now, but keep in mind that that is also being manipulated by the Exchange Stabilization Fund in Washington, and the time could easily come when that fund can no longer hold the dollar in the high '70's so we could see a crash there even before Wall Street goes.

 

[arkirk]

You want something that is stable and socially responsible? End this silly game with theorists and people setting up "downward spirals." End the fucking Fed. It has Fed us up to here! The Fed is an outfit run by the very people who keep the poor poor and the rich rich...no matter what they do. We on the periphery of this silly game of prognostication and exploitation would like to see a National Bank whose purpose is to "promote the general welfare" of the American people. That would be a CONSITUTIONAL DUTY of a National Bank.

The Fed is an institution of disconnected money grubbers who come from the financial "industry." Their policies are devoted to keeping private banks afloat...NO MATTER WHAT. This is a bad idea and costs the American public any hope of having a good future.

 

[wufwugy]

@Bill,

You're cherry picking what you want to look at. Definitively, policy is not loose if inflation is not high

You can find some of the monetary experts in the econ blogosphere. Probably the biggest current name is Scott Sumner, but IIRC Friedman debunked the "low interest rates = easy money" thing a long time ago and econ textbooks back that up.

The difference between a boom and a bubble is that when a boom drops, everybody retroactively says it was some sort of weird fake value bubble. Meanwhile, things that "should" be popping, haven't. That means the bubble concept is not accurate. I'm not arguing against the idea that asset bubbles exist, but against the idea that they're false value and have to pop. The data definitely demonstrates that is not true. However, if you're engaged in the Austrian paradigm, where the end-all-be-all of economics is structural rebalancing, you can't stop a "popping" by maintaining NGDP growth target

Austrailia isn't using tight policy. It's using defacto level targeting, so whenever NGDP drops, it engages in enough stimulus to pick it back up, and whenever NGDP gets too high, it pulls in the reigns to the degree that keeps it stable. This is why Australia doesn't have recessions of much depth anymore. The Fed was normally supposed to level target with inflation, but something very strange happened leading up to 2008 that made the economics profession unrealistically afraid of inflation. After this created the NGDP collapse, the Fed began realizing it had to stimulate, but there were still a bit of inflation fears as well as additional fear of bubbles.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Everytime I hear or read the words moral hazard, I think of some guy in ugly pants stuck in a sand trap.

Kinda hard to take it seriously.

 

[wufwugy]

Call it conflict of interests

 

[boneyard bill]

@Bill,

You're cherry picking what you want to look at. Definitively, policy is not loose if inflation is not high

You can find some of the monetary experts in the econ blogosphere. Probably the biggest current name is Scott Sumner, but IIRC Friedman debunked the "low interest rates = easy money" thing a long time ago and econ textbooks back that up.

The difference between a boom and a bubble is that when a boom drops, everybody retroactively says it was some sort of weird fake value bubble. Meanwhile, things that "should" be popping, haven't. That means the bubble concept is not accurate. I'm not arguing against the idea that asset bubbles exist, but against the idea that they're false value and have to pop. The data definitely demonstrates that is not true. However, if you're engaged in the Austrian paradigm, where the end-all-be-all of economics is structural rebalancing, you can't stop a "popping" by maintaining NGDP growth target

Austrailia isn't using tight policy. It's using defacto level targeting, so whenever NGDP drops, it engages in enough stimulus to pick it back up, and whenever NGDP gets too high, it pulls in the reigns to the degree that keeps it stable. This is why Australia doesn't have recessions of much depth anymore. The Fed was normally supposed to level target with inflation, but something very strange happened leading up to 2008 that made the economics profession unrealistically afraid of inflation. After this created the NGDP collapse, the Fed began realizing it had to stimulate, but there were still a bit of inflation fears as well as additional fear of bubbles.

You're making factual claims, but you are not backing them up. Where are the links to these claims? Where are the bubbles that should have popped but haven't? Where is the evidence that bubbles are not the result of "false values" as you call it? Where is the evidence that "easy money=low interest rates" has been debunked? How can I evaluate your claims if you do not support them in any way? I cited events and processes which anyone who has been paying attention to the economic scene should know to support my claims.

I'm not cherry picking any evidence. The method of calculating inflation has been changed, and the previous method does produce a much higher inflation figure. The Fed did dramatically lower interest under Greenspan and again under Bernanke. Meanwhile, I can't get you to produce even a coherent definition of what "easy money" is.

 

[wufwugy]

I already explained. If you're looking for links, you're out of luck, as I don't keep any handy. What I do, however, is keep up to date on the blogosphere among those who do economics for a living and I repeat the winning arguments here. If you want more, you have to investigate yourself. Start with Scott Sumner. He's one of the few PhD's in the blogosphere who still actually teaches, which makes his credibility among the highest. Branch out from there.

To repeat the points you think I haven't answered that I have: Canada, Australia, and China all have "bubbles" that, if the US housing "bubble" "popped", they would have already popped as well. But they're not popping, so the theory is wrong. Instead, those "bubbles" just keep going and going. Australia has defied all recessionary pressures while Europe has done the opposite, and the primary difference between the two is monetary policy. "Easy money=low rates" is the easiest debunk in the history of the world since rates have been low for a long time and money clearly has not been easy. If it was easy, higher inflation would be an absolutely unavoidable consequence. I'm still baffled that those who were crying inflation back in 09 haven't acknowledged that after fives years of being wrong, they have no idea what they're talking about

 

[laughing dog]

N
So what was the strategy? 1. Flood the banks with liquidity to guard against a run on the banks. 2. Buy bonds to lower interest rates and therefore push housing prices back up because much of the insolvency of the banks rests on the underwater mortgages that they are carrying. 3. Buy many of these bad mortgages from the banks at book value instead of market value to allow the banks to regain solvency more quickly. In other words, the Fed has taken these toxic assets off the banks books and added them to the Fed's books. 4. Pay interest on excess reserves to allow the banks not too lend too freely on their excess reserves and therefore avoid inflation.

It hasn't worked but that is another story.

Let's see. The banking system is solvent and inflation is quiescient. Interest rates are low and the housing markets are picking up. Seems that the policy is accomplishing what you claim.

 

[boneyard bill]

I already explained. If you're looking for links, you're out of luck, as I don't keep any handy. What I do, however, is keep up to date on the blogosphere among those who do economics for a living and I repeat the winning arguments here. If you want more, you have to investigate yourself. Start with Scott Sumner. He's one of the few PhD's in the blogosphere who still actually teaches, which makes his credibility among the highest. Branch out from there.

To repeat the points you think I haven't answered that I have: Canada, Australia, and China all have "bubbles" that, if the US housing "bubble" "popped", they would have already popped as well. But they're not popping, so the theory is wrong. Instead, those "bubbles" just keep going and going. Australia has defied all recessionary pressures while Europe has done the opposite, and the primary difference between the two is monetary policy. "Easy money=low rates" is the easiest debunk in the history of the world since rates have been low for a long time and money clearly has not been easy. If it was easy, higher inflation would be an absolutely unavoidable consequence. I'm still baffled that those who were crying inflation back in 09 haven't acknowledged that after fives years of being wrong, they have no idea what they're talking about

You have "explained" a fucking thing. All you've done is say that others have refuted my claims, but you haven't said what their arguments are or what evidence exists that does that. If you cannot summarize the argument, then you don't understand it, and you're just being a parrot. I don't know how you can say that Australia, Canada, and China have bubbles when you can't even define the term. A bubble seems to be anything you want to call a bubble.

I never said that "low-interest rates=easy money." I specifically noted that if the economy is booming, if savings are high, etc. then you might expect interest rates to be low simply because there is lots of money available in the private markets that is supported by real economic productivity. When you have low interest rates and monetary expansion in the absence of growth, then you have easy money.

As I have already pointed out, using the '70's standard of measuring inflation, our recent inflation levels have been in the high single digits. That isn't as bad as the inflation of late seventies, but it is comparable to the inflation of the early-to-mid seventies. That's when Gerald Ford launched his "Whip Inflation Now" campaign and urged everyone to be frugal. By the end of his term he had brought inflation down to under 5%. We've had inflation. It's the data that has been rigged.

 

[boneyard bill]

Let's see. The banking system is solvent and inflation is quiescient. Interest rates are low and the housing markets are picking up. Seems that the policy is accomplishing what you claim.

What world are you living in? The banking system is not solvent. If the banks were solvent, we could re-instate the "mark to market" rule. But we haven't done that. Mark to market gives you transparency, and the banks cannot afford transparency. Inflation is not quiescent. The figures have been rigged and, as I've already noted, the inflation is global this time. The housing market is picking up? That's not what I've been reading. There's renewed talk of another housing bubble burst! That's just great. The Fed can't think of anyway out of the housing bubble crisis than to create another housing bubble. But, really, they're creating bubbles all over the place. And why shouldn't they when they've been printing trillions of dollars?

 

[wufwugy]

Dude you said this

But in a fiat money system run by a central bank, low interest rates are basically achieved through loose money policy.

That wasn't the only instance of claiming that low interest rates are a sign of easy money

Haven't you noticed that I'm having such a hard time defining a bubble because there isn't any good definition? I keep saying "bubble" and "popping" because the concept isn't accurate. I gave you the examples why, but you wish to ignore them and accuse me of explaining nothing.

If you're saying the inflation measurements are secretly misleading compared to how they used to be, we're done here. Credible sources do not agree with that. Academia is not full of charlatans. Zerohedge and Shadowstats are not credible.

 

[laughing dog]

What world are you living in?

Planet earth - perhaps you should visit it.

The banking system is not solvent.

Yes it is.

If the banks were solvent, we could re-instate the "mark to market" rule.

Says who?

But we haven't done that. Mark to market gives you transparency, and the banks cannot afford transparency.

You need to explain those apparent counter-factual claims.

Inflation is not quiescent. The figures have been rigged and, as I've already noted, the inflation is global this time.

How are the figures "rigged"? Are you referring to the more appropriate current methodology tas opposed to the previous methodology which grossly mismeasured inflation over time?

The housing market is picking up? That's not what I've been reading. There's renewed talk of another housing bubble burst!

Um, you just contradicted yourself.

That's just great. The Fed can't think of anyway out of the housing bubble crisis than to create another housing bubble. But, really, they're creating bubbles all over the place. And why shouldn't they when they've been printing trillions of dollars?

Besides you, who is talking about a another housing bubble burst?

 

[boneyard bill]

wufwugy writes:

That wasn't the only instance of claiming that low interest rates are a sign of easy money

Yes, low interest rates are a sign of easy money. But they are not the same thing as easy money. I also noted when low interest rates would not be a sign of easy money.

Haven't you noticed that I'm having such a hard time defining a bubble because there isn't any good definition? I keep saying "bubble" and "popping" because the concept isn't accurate. I gave you the examples why, but you wish to ignore them and accuse me of explaining nothing.

I gave a definition of a bubble and didn't have any difficulty coming up with one. A bubble is when asset prices are rising due to money creation or an increase in money velocity that exceeds the real growth in productivity. If you have a problem with that definition then you need to come up with one of your own. But, in any case, you should have not difficulty understanding what I mean when I use the term regardless of what others may or may not mean. I also noted that the difficulty in identifying a bubble is not identifying rising asset prices. That's pretty obvious. The difficulty is in identifying actual growth. Thus, Bernanke was unable to predict the real estate bubble meltdown because he claimed that the rising real estate prices were the result of real economic growth. So may the "vagueness" of the term is a problem for you understanding what others are saying, but it shouldn't be a problem with understanding what I am saying.

If you're saying the inflation measurements are secretly misleading compared to how they used to be, we're done here. Credible sources do not agree with that. Academia is not full of charlatans. Zerohedge and Shadowstats are not credible.

I never mentioned Zerohedge. Shadowstats is not making their figures up. They are not claiming that they have a better way of calculating inflation. They are simply using a previous government method of calculation. If you're going to compare apples to apples, you need to use the same method. And according to that method, we have been experiencing a level of inflation which, in the mid-1970's, was considered a serious level that needed to be addressed. Now, if Ben Bernanke had used that method he probably would have found that real growth in the economy was a whole lot less, adjusted for inflation, than the official figures that he was using, and then he wouldn't have been misled into believing that the housing prices were being fueled by real growth rather than by inflation, and he could have correctly predicted the housing bubble.

There's nothing secret about any of this. And what, by the way, is a "credible source" all those academics who failed to predict the housing bubble? An if academics are a credible source, then what does that make of the Fed since most of its policies are at odds with what academics recommend?

 

[boneyard bill]

Planet earth - perhaps you should visit it.
Yes it is. Says who?
You need to explain those apparent counter-factual claims.
How are the figures "rigged"? Are you referring to the more appropriate current methodology tas opposed to the previous methodology which grossly mismeasured inflation over time?
Um, you just contradicted yourself. Besides you, who is talking about a another housing bubble burst?

You've just waved away everything I've said without even attempting to offer either a logical argument or empirical evidence against it. You haven't said anything worth responding to because, basically, you haven't said anything at all. I'm through with responding to these non-substantial blurbs.

 

[laughing dog]

I never mentioned Zerohedge. Shadowstats is not making their figures up. They are not claiming that they have a better way of calculating inflation. They are simply using a previous government method of calculation.

"Fixed-basket" methods for calculating inflation are flawed. These flaws have been known for decades. I learned about those flaws in principles of macroeconomics in the 1970s. The CPI methodology back then over-stated inflation.

If you're going to compare apples to apples, you need to use the same method.

You need to use a good method consistently. One can easily find inflation as measured by the current CPI for the 1970s as well as the current period.

And according to that method, we have been experiencing a level of inflation which, in the mid-1970's, was considered a serious level that needed to be addressed. Now, if Ben Bernanke had used that method he probably would have found that real growth in the economy was a whole lot less, adjusted for inflation, than the official figures that he was using, and then he wouldn't have been misled into believing that the housing prices were being fueled by real growth rather than by inflation, and he could have correctly predicted the housing bubble.

Or maybe he would have engaged in contractionary monetary policy and thrown the USA into a deeper recession.

There's nothing secret about any of this. And what, by the way, is a "credible source" all those academics who failed to predict the housing bubble? An if academics are a credible source, then what does that make of the Fed since most of its policies are at odds with what academics recommend?

On what reality-based standard do you make the claim that most of the Fed policies are at odds with what academics recommend?

- - - Updated - - -

You've just waved away everything I've said without even attempting to offer either a logical argument or empirical evidence against it. You haven't said anything worth responding to because, basically, you haven't said anything at all. I'm through with responding to these non-substantial blurbs.

You provided no evidence for your fanciful claims. I asked a couple of questions that you are apparently unable or unwilling to answer. So your response is technically an excellent example of a content-free response.

- - - Updated - - -

You've just waved away everything I've said without even attempting to offer either a logical argument or empirical evidence against it. You haven't said anything worth responding to because, basically, you haven't said anything at all. I'm through with responding to these non-substantial blurbs.

You provided no evidence for your fanciful claims. I asked a couple of questions that you are apparently unable or unwilling to answer. So your response is technically an excellent example of a content-free response.