The Goldilocks Warning
by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
ZeroHedge.com
Sun, 03/17/2019
The Goldilocks Warning
Lately, there has been an awful lot of talk about a “Goldilocks economy” here in the U.S. Despite a rather severe slow down globally, it is believed currently the domestic economy is going to continue to chug along with not enough inflation to push the Fed into hiking rates, but also won’t fall into recession. It is a “just right” economy which will allow corporate profits to grow at a strong enough rate for stocks to continue to rise at 8-10% per year. Every year…into eternity.
Does that really make any sense?
Particularly as we are looking at the longest expansion cycle in the history of the U.S. The problem is in the rush to come up with a “bullish thesis” as to why stocks should continue to elevate in the future, they have forgotten the last time the U.S. entered into such a state of “economic bliss.”
You might remember this:
“The Fed’s official forecast, an average of forecasts by Fed governors and the Fed’s district banks, essentially portrays a ‘Goldilocks’ economy that is neither too hot, with inflation, nor too cold, with rising unemployment.” – WSJ Feb 15, 2007
Of course, it was just 10-months later that the U.S. entered into a recession followed by the worst financial crisis since the “Great Depression.”
The problem with this “oft-repeated monument to trite” is that it’s absolute nonsense. As John Tamny once penned:
A “Goldilocks Economy,” one that is “not too hot and not too cold,” is very much the fashionable explanation at the moment for all that’s allegedly good. “Goldilocks” presumes economic uniformity where there is none, as though there’s no difference between Sausalito and Stockton, New York City and Newark. But there is, and that’s what’s so silly about commentary that lionizes the Fed for allegedly engineering “Goldilocks,” “soft landings,” and other laughable concepts that could only be dreamed up by the economics profession and the witless pundits who promote the profession’s mysticism.
What this tells us is that the Fed can’t engineer the falsehood that is Goldilocks, rather the Fed’s meddling is what some call Goldilocks, and sometimes worse. Not too hot and not too cold isn’t something sane minds aspire to, rather it’s the mediocrity we can expect so long as we presume that central bankers allocating the credit of others is the source of our prosperity.”
The Rest…HERE
