- This podcast comes from my hotel room in Las Vegas, as I am attending Freedom Fest
- Janet Yellen received a standing ovation at the end of her talk, and I can’t understand why…
- Headlines from the talk report “Rates to go up by the end of the year”
- Actual quote:”Based on my outlook, I expect that it will be appropriate at some point later to take the first step to raise the Federal Funds Rate, and thus begin normalizing monetary policy.”
- “I want to emphasize that the course of the economy and inflation remains highly uncertain, and unanticipated developments could delay or accelerate the first step.”
- In other words, the process will be delayed because whatever happens will be unanticipated or unannounced because the last thing Yellen wants to do is to admit that she can’t raise rates.
- We have gone 9 years without a rate hike
- The market is not prepared for a rate hike given the enormity of the debt
- The U.S. owes more money than all the other debtor nations combined
- We can only pretend to be solvent and zero percent interest rates are a big part of that pretense
- We will not be able to service our debt under normalization
- Yellen states that the labor market is continuing to improve
- No, it’s not
- Didn’t she see Friday’s jobs report, based on downward revisions to prior months?
- Didn’t she see the plunge in the labor force participation rate to a new low since 1977?
- Didn’t she see the all the part-time jobs that have replaced the lost full-time jobs?
- Didn’t she see yesterday’s weekly jobless claims report that surged to 297,000?
- Yellen previously stated that she would not raise interest rates until the labor market improves, and since then, the labor market has worsened
- Wholesale inventories for May up by .8%
- Year over year, sales are down 3.4%, the biggest decline since the 2008 financial crisis
- Greece is forced to revisit austerity measures as Germany refuses to budge
- Greece realizes they don’t want to leave the Eurozone
- The moral hazards are such that Europe can’t budge
- I dont’know how the Greek economy can grow, given the enormity of their debt in the hands of a socialist government
- Europe needs to keep pressure on Greece in order to maintain standards for weaker economies
- The Chinese stock market “collapse” is being overstated in the press
- Even though the Chinese market is down 30% in a short period of time the Chinese market is still positive on the calendar year
- The U.S. market is down
- In April of this year, Chinese stocks took off because changes in Chinese government policy, making it possible for investors to own certain stocks for the first time
- It should be no surprise that when a rush of investors tried to buy the new stocks, the price went up
- At some point there is going to be profit-taking, sparking panic selling
- This is normal market behavior
- The market just retraced its steps, leaving gains achieved prior to April
- The fundamentals that drove the market higher earlier this year are still solid, and they’re in place
- The dip in the market is a buying opportunity
- The next round of gains will be more sustainable
- The Chinese government exacerbated the volatility, making a classic mistake by chasing the market
- U.S. economic pundits are commenting on the absurdity of the valuations on some of the Chinese stocks
- They are living in a glass house – why are they throwing stones?
- The same can be said about some U.S. stocks with ridiculous valuations
- The Chinese monetary policy is creating issues, but beneath the bubble is a legitimate economy with production growth, savings and investment
- This is economic growth that is missing in the U.S. economy
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