Bush might get boost from Fed rate policy

[UpInArms]

http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=126503

WASHINGTON If this economic recovery were like almost any other in the past several decades, President George W. Bush might well be on a classic election-year collision course with the Federal Reserve.

But Fed officials have made it clear that they view this recovery as quite different from those in the past, and they seem determined to continue their policy of offering remarkably cheap money, even though the economy seems poised for its fastest growth in four years.

Bush's re-election campaign would welcome steady monetary policy by the Fed. The current president's father blamed his 1992 re-election defeat in part on earlier decisions by the Fed chairman then and now, Alan Greenspan, to keep interest rates relatively high.

...more...

if Greenspan plays politics, the world will know this time what he's up to

[drewb]

1. This isn't a recovery...

The fact that they kept dropping rates kept us from having a recovery...

They are just stalling for time.

I think Greenspan is playing politics, I think he thinks he is smarter than he really is and I think he is leading us and our children and our children's children straight to hell with his cheap money policies...

:loveya:

[Ninchik]

3. He's old and has arteries like rock.

He can't think outside the box. He can't even conceive of the box.

But he's shot his bolt. When he finally leaves the Fed he won't be a legendary genius, but a man who compounded fatal errors.

[acmavm]

2. Greenspan should have been on unemployment long ago. He has

absolutely no clue anymore. There is no recovery. None. All the growth in the economic numbers is due simply to defense spending, and defense spending cannot and will not prevent this country from sinking into the fiscal septic tank.

[schultzee]

4. Bernie Sanders grilled Greenspan a while back on the unemployment

and unemployment means increased productivity to Greenspan if one worker is doing the jobs of 2. Greenspan is a corporatist and he only looks at what is good for business not workers.

[drb]

5. Well, if Your Boy George has pictures...

...of Greenspan with farm animals, Greenspan will leave the rates low. But here's the problem - it cannot last.

The value of the dollar has dropped 20% against the Euro in the last year. If you are a wealthy German investor, for instance, your investments in the U.S. have dropped 20% in value, right?

So how likely are you to invest additonal money in the U.S.? Not at all, I betcha, unless interest rates go up to make it attractive.

So, all this money that Your Boy George thinks he's gonna borrow to invade Syria and let Dick Cheney keep $130,000 a year more in tax breaks - all that money he was planning to borrow from overseas investors -- he's gonna have to pay a higher interest rate on it.

So, now is the time to refinance and lock in at 6% for thirty years, if you haven't already. Rates are going up, one way or another.