Quote from jbtrader23:
"Did I not say in my other posts that lowering the Discount Rate was simply for announcement effect??? Does that statement not imply that the Fed can do other things to affect the economy and they are letting us know our sentiment. Have you done an analysis of Fed OMO and the Msupply, exchange rates, the yield curve? BTW, I think I missed that day in class where it said that all effects from Fed action happens instantaneously instead of over several quarters. I think the fact that this was a soft landing is proof of success by the Fed."
No, I don't claim to follow what academia tells us about the markets and the economy. That's not to say the models talked about in econ classes are completely unfounded. They aren't. But they aren't written in stone either.
I missed that class too where they tell us FED action helps the economy instanteously. The textbooks always say, "FED action takes time". 6 to 9 months for rate cuts to take effect. 9 months to a year. Maybe a year or longer. But 3 years!! How many textbooks tell you that. That's not in the book. To be exact, we are 34 months into a FED easing cycle. FED rate cuts so far have NOT lead to a sustained economic recovery. Admit it. This doesn't fit into the standard models. The last time FED rates didn't work for this long after a recession was pre WWII. Yes, back in the 1930's. When was the last time we had net job losses this long after a recovery started? Again, pre WW II.
Your econ models get thrown out of whack in a post bubble economy (i.e. the depression, Japan in the 90's, and the last few years in the US). The models tell you one thing. Reality tells you another. Post bubble recoveries behave differently than standard recoveries.
This was a "soft recovery" simply because the FED kept the printing presses working overtime. Greenspan kept the housing bubble and consumer bubble intact and thus minimized the fallout from our post bubble economy.
Where is a sustained and vigorous recovery going to come from? Where is pent up consumer demand going to come from? The sad fact is, most households in the US would have stopped spending along time ago if it wasn't for credit cards and home equity loans to tap. Massive consumer balance sheet repair is in order. Look at a chart of the personal savings rate in this country over the past 50 years. It use to stay in a fairly tight range of 7.5-10% a year. Even going higher than 10% a year during past recessions. Yet now it barely in the 2-3% range. We will go into a much deeper recession if people ever got their finances in order.