Jim Rickards: The Fed’s Road Ahead Is Bad For The Dollar, Good For Gold, And Full Of Inflation
SilverDoctors.com
June 15, 2018
“Now we’re at a very delicate point, because the Fed missed the opportunity to raise rates all those years ago. They’re trying to…”
by Jim Rickards via Daily Reckoning
The Fed raised rates yesterday, as I predicted months ago. I don’t say this to pat myself on the back.
The point is, I use a rigorous scientific method to analyze and predict markets. I don’t guess or take positions just to get attention. I constantly apply new data to test my original hypothesis. If the data confirms my hypothesis, I stick with it. If the data conflicts with it, I step back and re-evaluate. You have to stay nimble.
I’m a big critic of the Fed models, but that’s because they’re obsolete and they don’t record with reality. You need the right models.
In a typical business cycle, the economy starts from a low base, then gradually business starts expanding, hiring picks up, more people spend money, and businesses expand.
Eventually, industrial capacity is used up, labor markets tighten, resources are stretched. Prices rise, inflation picks up and the Fed comes along and says “Aha! There’s some inflation. We’d better snuff it.”
So it raises rates, usually for a full cycle.
Eventually it has to lower rates when the process goes into reverse. That’s the normal business cycle. It’s what everyone on Wall Street looks at. And historically, they’re right. That process has happened dozens of times since the end of World War II.
The problem is, that’s not what’s happening now. We’re in a new reality.
This is a result of nine years of unconventional monetary policy — QE1, QE2, QE3, Operation Twist and ZIRP. This has never happened before. It was a giant science experiment by Ben Bernanke.
And that’s the key…
You have to have models that accord to the new reality, not the old. Wall Street is still going by the old model.
The new reality is that the Fed basically missed a whole cycle. They should have raised rates in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Economic growth was not powerful. In fact it was fairly weak. But it was still the early stage of a growth cycle. If they had raised rates, many would have grumbled, the stock market would have hit a speed bump, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.
The Rest…HERE
