[Washington Examiner] Top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow called on the Federal Reserve Friday to cut interest rates in anticipation of a possible economic slowdown next year.
The National Economic Council director said in an interview on CNBC that recent data on the markets for U.S. debt hint at speed bumps in about a year. "We’re not there yet, we’re not a year ahead, but it’s something you have to watch," he said.
He then called on the Fed to cut its interest rate target by half a percentage point. "All’s I’m saying is, we want to open that throttle," he said. The Fed's target rate is currently 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent.
When asked whether President Trump is unhappy with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, a Trump appointee, Kudlow responded: "He’s our chairman, we’re not going to displace him."
"It is up to the Fed," he continued. "I’m not here to criticize the Fed. I’m just saying this is our point of view."
Trump has criticized the Fed in an unusually public manner, calling on the central bank, which was created to make economic decisions independent of politics, to keep rates low. The Fed has been raising rates in recent years in an effort to restore them closer to historic norms.
#1
The Fed gave Obama 8 years of low low interest rates to banks and institutions. Suddenly, now they need to choke the recovering economy. They certainly don't work for you or me.
#2
Usually like Kudlow, but no. Interest rates are still too low.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/31/2019 8:28 Comments ||
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#3
What we think is irrelevant. The banks and money institutions like being at the Fed's tit for cheap money. My gawd, if they had to pay depositors real interest to get their money, the big boys may have to shrink their profit margins. Where are the six figure salaries and generous year end bonuses going to come from? /rhet question
another, I think more important issue is the amount of debt the Fed is holding
As a response to the 2008 meltdown the Fed added a huge amount to its portfolio of bonds. Before 2008 it was holding about $1.5 Trillion, by 2012, this had reached about $4.4 Trillion. In the past year, they have reduced it to about $3.9 Trillion but they have a long way to go to get it where it needs to go.
Corporate debt is also very high (probably at least double the Federal Reserve debt holding) and needs to be reduced although that requires corporate governance.
Raising rates a bit higher would help a bit both of these issues.
As Kudlow would point out a slightly higher rate would inhibit business investment but in a healthy economy, business investment should be funded by profits and selling equity in companies.
was there something in my coffee today to make me verbose like this
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/31/2019 10:20 Comments ||
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#5
How can the government keep borrowing money if the Fed raises rates?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/31/2019 10:57 Comments ||
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#6
good point by Abu,
an increase in the yield of all T bills, notes and bonds across the board of 0.5% would increase govt borrowing costs by about $50B per year
however, the yield is determined by many factors, not just the fed fund rate since many, many foreigner buy US debt for the imputed safety, so an increase in the fed fund rate by 0.5% would likely mean a smaller, say 0.2% increase in the treasury instruments
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/31/2019 14:13 Comments ||
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#7
The Fed's charter way back when was to buy CORPORATE debt when times were tough, not US T-bills, notes, bonds, etc.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2019 10:55 ||
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#1
Probably a lot of stuff that lead to nowhere, but a long list of name of those involved. What they'll really redact is anything linking Hillary and co. with the dirty operation.
#2
Hopefully a detailed accounting of the millions spent on the investigation. So we can send the bill to Rachel Maddow. And an estimate of the carbon released during the investigation.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/31/2019 12:22 Comments ||
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#3
Psst, hey Dems, the only witch in this witch hunt was HildaB. She's the elephant in the room. She shouldn't be hard to find even for a Clouseau.
#6
I think the end game on the Democratic side is to muddy the waters parsing minutiae and debating word choice when the real issue in the Mueller Report is all of the footsteps and dot connecting that leads to youknowwho.
It is odd that a report that they said would be last word on collusion is not acceptable.
Of course, they want to leave it open to argue about access to Grand Jury testimony. It is amazing that after two years of cheering him on, the Dems now want the full report.
The spewing Schiff, Stalwell, Waters, and others about there being conclusive evidence and pointing at meetings that didn't happen and meetings set up by the Dems themselves are their evidence.
It troubles me that their continued ranting in the face of all reason and evidence is more proof of the fanaticism present in the Democratic party, as if AOC wasn't enough. And some of you out there are going to vote Democrat in 2020???
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2019 8:26 Comments ||
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#5
I think it's not at all unusual for politicians to be beholden to one group of backers or another.
Obama too sounded incoherent when he went off script. I used to look forward to the times when George W. Bush went off script because then he sounded like a human being. But he hardly ever did.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/31/2019 11:05 Comments ||
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#6
AOC’s In Big Trouble, Busted For ‘Illegal Dealings’ & May See Prison Time
[DAWN] REALISATION is growing in Pakistain that it needs to do more vis-à-vis banned ...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all...
organizations with an alleged presence on its soil. Prime Minister Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... has chaired two high-level meetings of the civilian and military leaderships within a span of three days to address the shortcomings in the government’s counterterrorism and anti-extremism strategy. The state has of late demonstrated a renewed resolve to dismantle bad boy networks and put a stop to their activities. Earlier this month, it banned the JuD and FIF and launched a countrywide crackdown against their assets. Provincial administrations sealed or took administrative control of hundreds of madressahs, mosques, hospitals and ambulances run by JuD and FIF, as well as the already proscribed JeM. Now comes the truly challenging task ‐ to identify the weaknesses in the state’s strategy that bad boy groups can still exploit in order to survive.
For one, the state could revisit some of its earlier anti-extremism measures and build upon them. More than four years have passed since NAP was announced in the immediate aftermath of the APS attack. However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... what began as a 20-point flagship plan has since become a footnote in this battle. The action taken in the light of NAP has largely been piecemeal; a few preachers of hate placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! , some jihadi literature seized, and so on. Among the few points followed through on was the controversial step of establishing military courts. Nevertheless, NAP has the potential of forming the bedrock of a properly fleshed-out, integrated plan of action with timelines whereby progress can be realistically assessed. Other existing resources can be harnessed for the purpose, such as Nacta which is as moribund as ever after having fallen prey to politicking. In fact, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf, then by the courts... did not call a single meeting of the premier counterterrorism body during his tenure. Instead of reinventing the wheel, such as setting up the National Internal Security Committee, why not strengthen Nacta and make it the robust entity it was meant to be? After all, both bodies have an identical raison d’être ‐ specifically, inter-provincial and inter-agency coordination on security matters.
The state’s next steps are critical. It must ensure for the country’s sake that extremism cannot take succour anywhere. Banning organizations is one thing: their top leaders should be prosecuted for enabling and abetting violence that has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives. Moreover, the state’s broad-based actions ‐ legislation, regulations, data collection, etc ‐ to tighten money-laundering procedures will not be sufficient unless complemented by activities at the ground level. The involvement of local administrations and law enforcement is important here, for the money trail that sustains holy warrior outfits can take many circuitous routes that sidestep the formal monetary system. There must be no doubt left that Pakistain is anything but fully committed to the global fight against terror financing.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2019 00:00 ||
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[American Thinker] A new member of Congress and self-proclaimed "activists" could benefit from the perspective of three films about the Middle East, released in 2018 and currently screening on cable television or Amazon Prime. Reviews of "Beirut", "The Insult", and "7 Days in Entebbe" follow - well written reviews. These are on my watchlist now
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2019 12:14 ||
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[6 views]
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#1
7 Days in Entebbe was well done, but the interpretive dance kind of gets in the way of the action.
Produced by the guy that made NARCOS. Good quality and historic reading
#2
Movies provide fun visuals and story lines.
Rarely do/can they represent the oppressive heat, blinding glare, air that sucks the moisture out of your lungs, smell of open sewers and rotten garbage, the stink of the merchant's breath and the dirty people.
But they are fun.
#3
Rarely do/can they represent the oppressive heat, blinding glare, air that sucks the moisture out of your lungs, smell of open sewers and rotten garbage, the stink of the merchant's breath and the dirty people.
I see a extravagantly failed business opportunity!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2019 18:31 Comments ||
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[PJMedia] "The operation to take Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... ’s last enclave in eastern Syria looked close to an end," Rooters recently reported, "as U.S.-backed fighters said they were combing the area for hidden jihadists... Its enclave at Baghouz was the last part of the massive territory it suddenly seized in 2014, straddling swathes of Iraq and Syria, where its leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart... declared a new caliphate."
While this is welcome news, it also prompts one to wonder: what of all those other Islamic enclaves, those unassimilated ticking time bombs that proliferate throughout the West, which are packed with ISIS-sympathizers, not to mention ISIS members, and which the West largely fails to recognize as such? I am referring to those many so-called "no-go" zones: Western cities and regions that have effectively become Islamic ghettoes. There, Sharia is the de facto law; Moslems are openly radicalized to hate infidels; non-Moslems, even police, are afraid to enter lest they get mugged, raped, or killed.
In short, the ISIS worldview dominates‐not in some distant theater of war, but right smack in the West itself (an internet search for terms such as "no-go" zones and "Moslem enclaves" demonstrates how prevalent and problematic this phenomenon is).
Although these Moslem enclaves are recent and unique phenomena, they have precedents in history and even a nomenclature in the Islamic consciousness.
Wherever the jihad was stopped, there, on the border with their infidel neighbors, jihadis formed strongholds, hotbeds of jihadi activities. These became known as the ribāt (رباط), an Arabic word etymologically rooted to the idea of a tight fastening or joining and found in Koran 3:200: "O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed [رابطوا] and fear Allah that you may be successful." In Islamic history, the ribāt referred to the chains of jihadi fortresses erected along and dedicated to raiding the borders of non-Moslems.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] REALISATION is growing in Pakistain that it needs to do more vis-à-vis 
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf, then by the courts...
[American Thinker] A new member of Congress and self-proclaimed "activists" could benefit from the perspective of three films about the Middle East, released in 2018 and currently screening on cable television or Amazon Prime.
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart...
