these rate cuts are hilarious

Quote from Trader5287:

Rate cuts dont have a thing to do with subprime - the Fed can't cut the Libor rate - which is going up, not down, as BOE recklessly drives the Brit economy into the ground. Trainwreck of the decade coming right there.

Too, the Paulson freeze even if he gets it in will do nothing for the simple reason that the borrowers for the past two years anyway have negative equity. They'd be fools to accept any rate freeze - they should just walk away - and the smart ones will.

This is all about the credit crunch spreading through credit, interbank lending and rate markets. If you're still stuck on subprime and moaning about idiot borrowers and bailouts for them, you're six months behind the curve.

The Fed needs to violently drive rates down in my view - near 3% for starters. Even more important, is somebody has to redesign the whole range of securitization instruments to restore confidence. This isn't happening.

When this is over, the low rate model of the US and Japan will be the winners and Euroland the laughingstocks I say.

Very, very good post and I agree with many of your points 87.

Mervyn King though is subject-like Bernanke-to a prevailing political wind that favors growth (or recession avoidance) over price and currency stability. The lessons from the inflation tribulations of Edward Heath's government are long forgotten.

It'll be Trichet's game of chicken that'll be the catalyst for some great trading.

Thus lies the rub. Rate cuts are wonderful stimulus when used to urge borrowers to buy under valued assets. When markets-as they do every so often-decide to revalue then cost of carry is a minor consideration. It was like the idiots who felt Greenspan waited too long to ease during late 2000. As if a lower Funds rate was the mere arbiter between JNPR trading $250 or $5.

Housing is in the same situation as circa 2000 tech. Perhaps home prices are no where near as bubblesque as CMGI was but then again the banking system and half of America weren't long tech on 90% margin.

I agree with the premise that our monetary (and fiscal) policy is more akin to Japan than anyone. However did an accommodative to the max BOJ save Japanese asset prices? Not even close. In fact to this day the Nikkei is the first index to go sellers on a hint of weakness. When a Manhattan co-op in next years death spiral goes from 2mil to 780k the collapse won't be predicated on the Fed's open market operations.
 
Japan is a semi-socialist one party state, in no way comparable to the US. It should come as no surprise that a lowering of the price of money did nothing for them, because price never did control that economy. Politics and gangsters did, and still do.
Here in the US, a lowering of the price of money will, with a lag, work, because this is a free economy underpinned by a multiparty republic.
 
Quote from trefoil:

Japan is a semi-socialist one party state, in no way comparable to the US. It should come as no surprise that a lowering of the price of money did nothing for them, because price never did control that economy. Politics and gangsters did, and still do.
Here in the US, a lowering of the price of money will, with a lag, work, because this is a free economy underpinned by a multiparty republic.

I don't mean to be rude, but this is just plain delusional.
 
Quote from trefoil:

because this is a free economy underpinned by a multiparty republic.

WHAT?

I would not even know where to start, but I will finish with this. There is no way you or anyone can even show how this is a free economy when we have a central bank. A central bank is one of the key cornerstones of the Communist Manifesto.
 
Guys - here's the best weekly summary of equities, rates, commods and currency I know of so take a minute and read it. In fact, if you at least read the market summaries and ignore the bearish commentary every Saturday, I guarantee you'll spot a market somewhere in the world that's wrong - just by knowing the YTD % or 5day % up or down. It prints money for me anyway.

Anyway, to the point, look at some of those news stories more toward the middle - particularly from FT and Bloom. They're very alarming. You don't have to be a surgeon to know this whole credit mess is one sick fken patient that isn't getting better so far.

http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4842&Itemid=55
 
Quote from Alex_in_Oz:

Good post and an excellent comment!

The treasury, the Fed, the administration, the banks, the investment banks etc are all in denial of this basic fact.

It will bite them on the arse eventually.

Unfortunately going to bite the rest of us responsible borrowers too... higher inflation and weaker buying power of our money do to bail out efforts.
 
Big money being made on this:

Odds of a half-point cut, which were 2 percent a week ago, reached 52 percent as of 4:17 p.m. in New York.

I don't know how to do it though. :(
 
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