Thursday, June 23, 2011

Fed Confirms Structural Problems But Ignores Bank Exposure

Leave it to the Fed to be last to the party.  Recall the past pronouncements of Helicopter Ben wherein he claimed things were getting better.  Well, they're not.  The Fed says the economy is slowing down and the near future will not offer improvements.  I knew this months ago.  Read my past blog posts and you'll see how far ahead I was of the Fed's own analysts. 

Given the Fed's track record of inaccurate prognostications, one must wonder whether any predictions it makes are accurate.  Right now the Fed Chairman claims a Greek default won't harm U.S. banks.  He said pretty much the same thing about the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 and how its effects were contained from the rest of the economy.  The European Central Bank has a much more sober view of how dangerous the Greek crisis can get for banks.  U.S. money market funds heed the warning signs and scale back their exposure to European debt.  They must not be paying much attention to the Fed. 

The credit crisis is back.  It's not pretty or exciting.