WEEKEND WRAP: All That Glitters

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Thwarting the Business Cycle

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Fed Lowers Rate by 0.50%; False Premises

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STUPID PEOPLE LINE UP HERE: Fed Will Cut Interest Rate Today; 25 or 50 Basis Points is the Orwellian, Dystopian Question

Editor's Note: Sure enough, as Murphy's Law dictates, on the day of the one event the market has been breathlessly awaiting for months, our site, dtmagazine.com is off line. Not only our site, but apparently possibly thousands of others are kaput for now, as our hosting provider, Total Choice Hosting is suffering an outage. They're based in Detroit, but we've found no information indicating any kind of disruption.

In any case, we're publishing here on Blogger, which once was our home. Sorry for any inconvenience, but, on our end, this is a rather serious issue. Stay tuned and good luck.

--FR

Imagine a sign that says, "Stupid People Line Up Here," and there you saw Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, former president Donald Trump, Nobel economist Paul Krugman, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and other fine, upstanding, well-known politicians and business leaders.

One would be inclined to ignore the message and just follow those dignified folks. Or, maybe not. The ones who get a pass on this intelligence test are all dead, like Paul Volker, long-ago Fed Chairman who courageously fought off inflation by raising the federal funds rate to 19 percent.

So, as the line is forming, you see, one by one, each of these dignitaries get a card that gives them either 0.25% or 0.50% discount on their credit card interest and then step forward and fall off a cliff. You might want to reconsider your choice, but, there's a security guard there checking Facebook and X posts telling you that it's too late. You cannot change lines. Of course, it would be impossible anyway. There's only one line.

Dytopian? Yes. Orwellian. Certainly. Kafka-esce? No doubt about it, but, that's where the current brain-dead, lemming-like (giving lemmings a bad rap, BTW) "leadership" and financial consenus has taken the entire world.

Finally, when you get to the front of the line, get your card (lucky you, it's a 0.50% card), step off the cliff into the abyss, you see other people descending at various rates of fall: Ursula von der Leyen, Christine Lagarde, Emmanuel Macron, Michael Bloomberg, you even drift near to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, oddly enough, is being suspended by a parachute, drifting graciously down, down, down.

At the bottom of the abyss is an enormous placard that says, "Approved by Aldous Huxley. ENJOY!"

As you're falling, you realize that the sign at the bottom isn't getting any closer. It seems to be moving lower in tandem with your descent. Along the way are various fast food outlets, and, getting hungry on your trip to who knows where, you think you might grab a burger and some fries, but every time you get close to a McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's or Taco Bell, the price goes up and you have less money in your wallet than the last time you checked.

Eventually, you realize that the money you possess doesn't buy as much as it did just moments before, so, a cold drink is off the menu because you can no longer afford it, and then, a burger and fries costs more than you can afford, and you're getting hungrier and hungrier...

Eventually, you decide on just small fries, because that's all you can afford. You get the fries from the friendly ghoul at the drive-through and he asks, "would you like ketchup with that?"

When you answer affirmatively, you're told ketchup will be extra, and forget about getting a spork or a floon. You have to eat it by hand.

So, there you are, falling, falling, falling, eating your fries, hand to mouth, wondering if you're dreaming, when Jerome Powell himself comes by and pinches you, saying, "this is not a dream. This is the actual nightmare of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking."

* * * * *

That's essentially what's going to happen, starting just seconds after 2:00 pm ET, when the FOMC of the Federal Reserve announces their rate policy decision. Nobody will really notice any great changes right away. They'll all just, one by one, start heading for that STUPID PEOPLE LINE UP HERE queue. As time progresses like it always does, over the cliff they'll go, one by one, then in small groups, and finally the entire edifice collapses and everybody goes down.

While you're being drawn inexorably toward the line - because there is only one line - you think about saving yourself and your family. You buy a gun, canned goods, some gold and silver. While none of these will ensure that you don't get in the line and go over the cliff, they may provide some relief: others will cut in front of you, mostly people with large credit card bills, stock portfolios, and mortgages, and; you may find salvation on a crag of rock or a ledge on your way down, never descending all the way to the bottom of what is, essentially, a bottomless pit.

Perhaps you're skeptical about this little fable. You may think - like Jamie Dimon - that a 25 or 50 basis point cut to the federal funds rate isn't a big deal. Meybe it's not, but check back in three months, six months, a year, two years, five years and see where you are. Within two years and possibly sooner, the federal funds rate will once again be approaching zero, maybe about 2.5% or so, and while mortgage and credit card payments are a little easier, you probably won't have gotten a raise (if you even still have a job and/or some form of income) and the price of everything will be higher or lower, depending on what it is, where it came from and where you live.

What will occur today when the Fed makes its momentous announcement is just the beginning, or maybe closer to the middle, of the Greater Depression, which will be followed by war, and then, well, you get the picture.

Now, get in line.

At the Close, Tuesday, September 17, 2024:
Dow: 41,606.18, -15.90 (-0.04%)
NASDAQ: 17,628.06, +35.93 (+0.20%)
S&P 500: 5,634.58, +1.49 (+0.03%)
NYSE Composite: 19,225.78, -30.60 (-0.16%)

Fed's Upcoming FOMC Decision Is Likely to Have Little Effect on General Living Conditions for Most People

The degree of anticipation surrounding the "most momentous Fed decision in years" is truly breathtaking and utterly stupid. It's almost a bad as the level of hype and media droning about the upcoming presidential election. To think that a group of overrated acadmics are qualified to determine the fate of the U.S. economy, and, to a large extent, that of the entire world, goes far beyond the normal outlines of pure economics. The decision to lower the federal funds target rate either by 25 or 50 basis points has taken on qualities previously reserved for Delphic oracles, magicians, and gypsy fortune-tellers. It's as though the entire world will suddenly become better or worse just because of the decision made by 12 eggheads sitting around a mahogany table. Here's a news flash: very little in the lives of billions of people will change dramtically whatever the FOMC decides of Wednesday. Most people will be more affected by what their kids or close relatives do, their job performance, their health, or the relative functionality of the cars they drive. Even presidential elections have little to do with everyday operations. In a lifetime that began in, say, the 1960s, what enormous differences were there in most people's lives whether the president was Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama? Not a heck of a lot. Prices for everything went up during each of their administrations, the U.S. waged war or had conflicts against various other countries, some people worked, others didn't, kids went to school, technology advanced. Nothing was so vastly different under different presidents or Federal Reserve chairmen so as to cause violent, surprising, or damatic changes in the lifestyles of Americans, and, to a large degree, those of billions of people living around the world. Sure, changes made by presidents and FOMC voters had some subtle effects. Inflation ran hotter or cooler at various junctures. The threat of war was higher or lower. There was higher or lower unemployment, but overall, presidents and economists don't change the world. People do. Individuals doing what they desire, engaged in activities decided by themselves have collectively more impact on the overall world construction than anything any president, or congressman, or economist might conjure up out of the miasma of sympathies, theories, suggestions, and possibilities floating about in the ecosphere of ideas. Little things add up and the collective interests of homo sapiens matter more than the delusional proclamations of kings, rulers, soothsayers, and analysts. Technological breaktroughs and advancements in science are usually more profound and create longer-lasting effects on larger populations. There are times when leaders, usually dictators or democratically-elected persons blunder into earth-shattering conditions, like Hitler or Hirohito in World War II, or Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam era, but, even then, for the most part, the lives of millions of individiduals are hardly affected. In the leadup to World War II, while war raged at various locales in Europe for many years, Americans enjoyed peace at home prior to entering the conflict. Change was sudden after Pearl Harbor, but it was individual American men and women who made choices: to fight or not, to work within the war machine or avoid it, to support America's role or not. With Vietnam, it was the actions and voices of the masses that changed the direction of the war, as campus protests and significant rallies in opposition to America's engagement that eventually swayed public opinion - and that of the leading actors in Washington - to forestall and eventually end the conflict. So, what the Fed does on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, will not forever go down in he annals of history as an epochal event. Rather, it will be considered to be either wise or devoid of reason, depending on the eventual outcome of the future and other policies and decisions from other, unrelated quarters. There's little chance that whatever is decided tomorrow will be consequential. The path of financial destruction and debasing of the currency is well trod upon and likely irreversible. The same will be true of the presidential choice and decisions made and policies pursued by either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. The road upon which we all travel has a distinct destination and the only question is how quickly or slowly the world lurches towards it. In the meantime, individuals will either prepare or not. Politicians and bureaucrats may try to - and often do - influence the actions of people far beyond their immediate circles, but, in the end, it is people, individually and collectively, who make changes. At the Close, Monday, September 16, 2024: Dow: 41,622.08, +228.30 (+0.55%) NASDAQ: 17,592.13, -91.85 (-0.52%) S&P 500: 5,633.09, +7.07 (+0.13%) NYSE Composite: 19,256.38, +134.88 (+0.71%)