Thursday, April 29, 2021

Fed Shrugs Off Inflation, Again; Biden Plan: Handouts and Higher Taxes

A funny thing happened on the way to the FOMC rate policy meeting which concluded Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 pm ET.

Stocks ramped higher immediately upon the release. For some reason, a reiteration by the Fed that interest rates would remain at the zero bound was celebrated as good news. But, as the session would to a close, stocks retreated to almost exactly where they were just prior to the announcement.

See here:

Index: at 2:00 pm / at close
Dow: 33,828.81 / 33,820.38
NASDAQ: 14,054.91 / 14,051.03
S&P 500: 4,184.23 / 4,183.18

So, does that imply the Fed is out of the loop? That whatever they say - as long as it's roughly the same message as the prior statement - is disregarded?

Probably yes on both counts. The Fed is just there to oversee the destruction of the fiat regime, which is on its final descent into oblivion. People trading chits, stocks, certificates, even cryptos, realize that it's all just paper, backed by nothing, soon to revert to its intrinsic value, near zero. With short term interest rates at .01% or .03%, the time value of money has been eliminated from any quantifiable equation. Money, in terms of fiats, has been deemed by the Federal Reserve, to have almost no value. There is literally no reason to hold onto it for any longer than necessary, which, if one is a functioning member of society, would mean hours, or even minutes.

Get your check. Pay your bill. Buy food, clothes, gas, a car, a bird cage. It's better to have a physical object in hand than wait for the price to come down or a better deal elsewhere, because it's probably not going to happen, at least not as long as the Fed insists on easy monetary policies and printing more at the drop of a hat.

The Fed also doesn't see inflation as a long term issue, though nobody in the building trades see the price of lumber coming down any time soon. The same goes for people who shop for food. Canned goods remain one of the smartest purchases one can make in this environment. For what it's worth, that 79-cent can of cut green beans will hold its value for years while the dollar loses the remaining 2.15% of its purchasing power.

So much for the first iteration of Wednesday's public finance double-header.

In the nightcap, Joe Biden took to the podium before an assemblage of other brain-dead political hacks to explain how he plans to help usher in the complete destruction of the US economy, outlining his absurd plan to spend another $1.8 trillion that the government neither has in hand nor possesses the ability to borrow and repay. Not that they can't borrow $1.8 trillion, or $5 trillion or even more. The Fed will gladly loan it out. The federal government simply has no reasonable way to repay it. They've already ballooned this year's deficit to over $1 trillion, and the fiscal year is just past the mid-point. And, there's that $28 trillion in outstanding debt that continues to accumulate interest that they cannot and never will pay back.

Calling his agenda "The American Families Plan" the White House bills Biden's hair-brained $1.8 trillion spending fiasco as "a once-in-a-generation investment in the foundations of middle-class prosperity – education, health care, and child care."

Excuse people for being dense or old-school, but isn't the foundation of middle-class prosperity a good job, stable home, hard work, and individual responsibility?

Biden seems to have lost touch with his own Baby Boomer roots and maybe even those of Millennials, Xs, Ys, and Zs. Education hasn't paid benefits in decades. That's why people with degrees are working as baristas at Starbucks. Health care is an expense that continues to skyrocket out of control, and child care is only a consideration if one has kids under the age of eight.

Anyhow, the "plan" is a blend of tax credits, free tuition to community colleges, paid family and medical leave, expansion of the child care tax credit and a string of tax hikes aimed at the upper echelon of society by increasing the top individual tax rate from 37% to 39.6% and raising the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 39.6% for taxpayers making over $1 million.

Coupled with the infrastructure plan currently dying in congress, the latest spending proposal by the occupier-in-chief would not create any new jobs, raise anybody's pay except maybe some social workers and IRS agents, and would result in higher taxes for individuals and businesses.

Joe's plans are no-go. The government can’t afford it and people won’t want to pay for it. Biden might as well be whistling past the grave of the US economy with these numbskull, Obama-era-inspired ideas.

AT THE CLOSE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021:
Dow: 33,820.38, -164.55 (-0.48%)
NASDAQ: 14,051.03, -39.19 (-0.28%)
S&P 500: 4,183.18, -3.54 (-0.08%)
NYSE: 16,322.13, +48.82 (+0.30%)

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