How much of the inflation paranoia was fueled by the Federal Reserve and how much by the dumbass ECB hawks? This entire "buy commodities to hedge against inflation" headfake was hammered into investors' heads by the ECB, not the Fed:Quote from dhpar:commodity bubble was fueled by fed's easy money policy. everybody was escaping to commodities to hedge against the perceived risk of inflation it brings
Bernanke Q2/2008
- "clear risks to growth"
- "economy slowing down across the board"
- "headline inflation will cool in the intermediate term"
- "seeing no longer term pressures on wages and core inflation"
ECB July/2008
- "remaining highly vigilant about inflation"
- "highly concerned about rampant headline inflation trickling down into core inflation"
- "not concerned about EUR strength"
- "do not see negative EU zone GDP in Q4/2008"
- "see growth pickup in Q1/2009"
- "no room for rate cuts"
- "will not rule out further rate hikes"
The ECB, in my opinion, is one of the main culprits behind the severity of the commodity bubble by driving millions of dumbass investors into short USD/long commodities positions at the same time that led to a viscious and painful unwind this fall when everybody tried to exit through the same door.
Just the facts, from my "cheerleader" perch.
