The Fallacy of Money Mania

It’s been a grueling Fall 2007, with the continued shocks from the housing mess, the market sell-off, oil still sky high, the dollar hitting new lows, and the rising gold price giving that ever-ominous sign of trouble ahead. Business conditions have deteriorated dramatically. And the gold price reflects a general trend: the consumer and producer price indexes are continuing an uptrend that compares to the steep levels of the mid and late 1970s. And if you really want to wince, take a look at federal spending and debt. It’s unreal: $8.2 trillion in debt, with nearly $5 trillion of it held by the public as an investment . Ah, but wait! One day in November, the stock market soars and traders are wild with glee. The storm clouds are gone and the sun is out. What happened? No fundamentals changed. No new reports came in. No numbers were revised. What happened was but a few words from the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoken at a roundtable at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said the Fed would follow “flexible and pragmatic policy making” and “act as needed.” Woo hoo! You see, to markets that are worried about the future, this was interpreted as pledge to lower interest rates and flood the economy with more credit. FULL ARTICLE