The Fed is Running Out of Financial Tricks
The Fed is Running Out of Financial Tricks
By Todd Strandberg
For the past several weeks, the Federal Reserve has been pouring money into the banking system. About $400 billion has been used to keep the short-term loan market from freezing up. This action was only to last a few days, but it has lasted a couple months now.
Some of you may have heard the term repurchase agreements or “repo.” In the repo market, borrowers seeking cash offer lenders collateral in the form of safe securities—frequently Treasury bonds—in exchange for a short-term loan. The term of these loans can be as short as overnight. When the Fed adds money to the financial system through the repo market, it is acting as a lender.
The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, said that the central bank was resuming Permanent Open Market Operations after a 5-year hiatus. It would again begin expanding its portfolio of government-backed securities, called quantitative easing (QE), and continued to leave the door open to another interest rate cut this month. While “policy is not on a preset course,” Mr. Powell said, the Fed will “act as appropriate to support continued growth.”
“Because Congress has granted the Federal Reserve significant protections from short-term political pressures, we have an obligation to clearly explain what we are doing and why. And we have an obligation to actively engage the people we serve so that they and their elected representatives can hold us accountable,” Powell said.
“My colleagues and I will soon announce measures to add to the supply of reserves over time,” Powell said at the National Association of Business Economics meeting in Denver, Colorado. “This is not QE.”
In the past, the unchecked printing of money has always resulted in hyper-inflation. It is amazing that we have been able to avoid calamity by simply calling it QE. Eventually, people will realize what is taking place, and they will run for the door.
The federal budget deficit for 2019 is estimated at $984 billion, a hefty 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and the highest since 2012, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said last week. I looked at the Fed’s website for Sep 30, 2018, to Sep 30, 2019, and the year deficit was $1.2 trillion. There is at least $200 billion of bonds that need to be issued to cover the bonds that were allowed to expire between February and September.
The Fed now needs to issue a trillion dollars in debt each month to cover bonds that have a short duration. Our total national debt currently stands at nearly $23 trillion.
The U.S. dollar has been rising against most global currencies because most nations have their own massive budget deficits. It is stunning to note that the reaction to this sea of red ink was for rates to drop below zero. By Oct 1, 2019, negative-yielding debt had grown to more than $18 trillion. Greece has defaulted four times on its national debt, and it has just issued its first negative yield bond.
Anyone with a basic understanding of how financial markets work knows that the day will eventually come when the Fed and Wallstreet will become powerless to prevent a monetary meltdown. The ability of us to reach levels of absolute absurdity shows that some form of supernatural intervention is at work. God is holding things together until the tribulation hour springs on humanity like a bear trap.
We are now in the longest period of positive growth in American history. Because Jesus said he would come at a time of “peace and safety,” I think the Rapture is the only explanation for why we have a Goldilocks economy.
“I heard the third living creature say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine” (Revelation 6:5-6).
“For when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety’; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape’” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
–Todd