Trump says the Federal Reserve has gone crazy

Depends on what services you get in return. People there are pretty happy I heard.

Youā€™ll get the additional service of more janitors clean up the homeless poop in front of your house.

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FED is doing its duty, but president Trump is wrong in public criticism!

I am guessing that the private talk didnā€™t help. So Trump is resorting to public insults. Powell may quit after a few of these.

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Fed is supposed to be independent. Private talks are frowned upon.

Rate increase is appropriate given the inflation acceleration caused by trade war. You may not like it but I think Powell is doing the right thing.

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As an aside, many new Fed Chairs have faced a crisis early in their term. A few examples, Paul Volcker took office in August 1979, and inflation hit almost 12% (up from 7.9% the year before), and the economy went into recession as Volcker raised rates. Alan Greenspan took office in August 1987, and the stock market crashed almost 34% within a couple months of Greenspan taking office (including over 20% in one day!). And Ben Bernanke took office in February 2006, just as house prices peaked - and he was challenged by the housing bust, great recession and financial crisis.

The only one who didnā€™t have a crisis? Yellen. :smile: Trump messed with the wrong person!

Trump said he did not talk to Powell. Powell is not full FED as he needs to listen to all FED governors.

With todayā€™s Trump talk, I infer exactly his motive to indirectly force Powell and have another puppet in that place.

Since FED is independent and providing status to congress, it is a long and hard process. Above all, Powell is one amount the voters of FED and it is hard for Trump to control them. Anyway, this is power politics that can go any way with lot of IFs and BUTs.

I thought the rates started going up even before the trade war. I donā€™t really have an opinion on what the rates should be at. All I know is that the Fed always over corrects. Are you personally feeling the effects of inflation? I thought even rents have been stable since last tear. Gas prices have always been fluctuating or manipulated by the OPEC, so letā€™s leave that out.

They went up before the tariffs because the Fed wanted to stabilize the rates such that if they need to cut them later they wonā€™t enter negative territory. The continuation of the rate hikes afterwards is still appropriate given the trade war. Economic reports donā€™t get released until after the fact. If you are the Fed chair you donā€™t want to be reactionary.

Yes I do feel inflation is creeping up. If you go grocery shopping (especially at Asian supermarkets) youā€™d notice.

The Fed has been stating their inflation target is 2% for years and we are there already. Of course they have to raise rate. Otherwise Fed will lose credibility.

I am sympathetic to the view that we should allow more inflation, maybe 3 or even 4%. But the Fed needs to tell the whole world explicitly thatā€™s their new goal. Absent that they are right to raise rate.

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I hope the Fed raises your mortgage rate to 100% and causes your stock portfolio to drop to 0. Serves you right. Not only 0. -1000% since youā€™re on marginā€¦ :rofl:

I donā€™t get why the goal is 2%. Thatā€™s lower than long-term average. Iā€™d agree 3-4% is a more appropriate target.

Chinaā€™s is above 10%. We need to go beyond Chinaā€™s rate if we want to remain competitive and stay on top.

Everybody is hell bent set on 2%. Not only the Fed. European Central Bank and Japan Central Bank also set their target at 2%. Seems to be a global consensus that doesnā€™t have much theoretical backing. Our unemployment is still close to 4% and we clearly have slack to burn. Why not go higher to test the water? Technology and global supply chain are both very deflationary.

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In US economy, everyone is earning through spread . When FED aims at 2% , market must earn 4 return to defeat inflation.

FED can not aim higher than 2% and slowly raise the target rate over many years.

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In addition to the Fed, Trump can blame his tariffs for the latest market slump - CNBC

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Thereā€™s a trade deal with Mexico and Canada. It seems the EU is close to lowering/removing auto tariffs and some other moves. Thereā€™s a trade deal with S Korea. There was way more tariff risk months ago vs. now. Thatā€™s not a great reason for this weekā€™s market dive.

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You never need a ā€œgoodā€ reason for market to drop. There werenā€™t any good reasons for it to go up parabolically back in January either. Markets always overreact trying to discount the future.

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Trump is just trying to deflect blame from himself. The 10 year bond will do whatever it wants regardless of the Fed. Long term it looks like we are headed into a high debt, high inflation environment. Not good for stocks. But maybe good for real estate

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The deficit is going to increase:

  1. Thereā€™s a zero percent chance the public will support increasing payroll taxes or a new tax to cover the actual cost of social security and medicare.
  2. Thereā€™s a zero percent chance the public will tolerate meaningful entitlement reform to reduce social security and medicare spending. Itā€™d require a 25% cut to put us on a sustainable path.
  3. Increasing income tax rates hasnā€™t proven to increase taxes collected as a percent of GDP.

By 2032, social security, medicare, and medicaid will consume every dollar of tax revenue. Any other discussions about tax revenue and spending are just window dressing to score political points and arenā€™t meaningful.