Some people think it is conspiratorial to believe that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is attempting to crash the economy and the stock market, both of which have set numerous records since POTUS Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, but in a lot of ways, there is a good reason to suspect that.
First of all, he has claimed that a series of interest rate hikes he has implemented over the course of 2018 is in response to ‘inflationary pressures’ on the economy, but there aren’t any signs that inflation is occurring, at least at a level that justifies shaving thousands of points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average as well as $4 trillion in wealth. That includes a rate hike Powell announced on Wednesday.
Secondly, economists and financial experts themselves are beginning to wonder what Powell’s doing and why his rate increases have been so aggressive given the negative impact they are having on the markets.
And third, there was no aggressive push to raise rates during President Obama’s two terms — which would have been truly disastrous for his no-growth economy.
As reported by CNBC:
CNBC's Jim Cramer went off on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying President Donald Trump is right to worry about a possible recession in 2019 as a result of the central bank chief's rate hikes.
“The president is spot on," Cramer said on CNBC's "Mad Money” program Wednesday evening, following the fourth rate increase this year with a projected two more increases next year, according to Powell. "The Fed is perfectly happy to gradually strangle the economy, the U.S. economy, in order to stamp out inflation, or the potential of inflation. And that's bad news for corporate earnings" and the stock market, he added.
Then he added this little gem: “If I were running Trump's re-election campaign, Jay Powell would be my worst nightmare," said Cramer, who, like POTUS Trump, has been calling on Powell to end his increases because of the negative impact they are having.
Meanwhile about Powell apologists, Cramer added, “They must have no sense or empathy for what's about to happen to the working person in this country.”
While noting that the Dow could “easily” be down just 1,000 points given early rate hikes just as a matter of adjusting to new economic realities, continuing to raise rates even after the Dow has tanked 3,500-plus points since October is madness.
“I can't blame anyone for selling,” said Cramer. “There's a real cosmic irony in the fact that if President Trump had simply kept Janet Yellen in place as Fed chief, she'd be taking a much less aggressive approach here," Cramer said.
He also said he believes that Powell’s simply “wrong” about what he’s seeing in the economy.
How low will the markets go?
As The National Sentinel reported Thursday, the market losses are beginning to resemble what happened in 2008 when trillions were lost due to the subprime mortgage crisis:
What’s wrong is that Powell — who said this week he plans to continue raising rates into next year — seems oblivious to the damage he’s doing to the retirement accounts of ordinary Americans.
Some have speculated that the Deep State would tank the U.S. economy if they thought it would harm President Trump’s reelection chances in 2020. We’re not into conspiracy theories, but it’s clear that Powell’s actions are harming, not helping the economy — so what’s his motivation? What’s driving his decision-making?
As of Thursday afternoon when the markets closed, the Dow Jones had fallen below 23,000, after topping out at a record high of 26,656.98 on Sept. 20.
“I think that the market was disappointed in the Chairman’s comments,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told Fox Business’ Stuart Varney Thursday. “But I would say if you look at the specifics you can’t just look at the headline which was two more rate hikes you have to actually look at the seventeen dots on the dot plot,” a chart the Fed uses to convey expectations for the federal funds rate.
We’ll see. For the time being, however, the facts on the ground are thus: Powell’s hiking rates, the market is plunging, and Americans’ 401k accounts are dwindling. The question is, why it is all happening?
Read more about the potential for another economic collapse at Collapse.news.
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