nothingtown

What did you want Bernanke to do?  Flood the bond market with cash once again?  Push Treasury rates below 1%?

For what? 

Record low mortgage rates and cheaper-than-ever borrowing costs mean nothing in the absence of demand.

liquiditytrapbalancesheetrecessionsecularbearmarketdeleveragingcyclepostcreditcrisisrecession

depressioncompression

You wanted the Bank of England to cut rates from 50 basis points?  Expand their bond-buying programme?

For what?

For the last four years we’ve stimulated banks, the ultra-wealthy and corporations.  We’ve made it incredibly comfortable for lenders to fix their balance sheets, corporations to roll over and refi their debt at absurdly cheap levels, rich people to see their assets pushed up unnaturally.

You do realize that 10% of Americans own 80% of the whole stock market, do you not?  You are aware, of course, that 7 million accredited investors control $11 trillion in investable assets and that the rest of you can go fuck off.

Because this is Nothingtown.  Nothing helps anyone except for the people who don’t really need any help at all.  You think the Fed buying an  extra $200 billion worth of Monopoly properties with Monopoly money is going to find it’s way to single moms hustling to pick up part-time work or laid-off office drones who’ve been replaced by Salesforce.com?

And as for Mario Draghi, he does not have the cooperation of the people who control the money.  He is unlikely to get it ever or until things worsen a great deal.  It is best to look at him as a caring, hardworking and tragic little Pinocchio figure, with the strings that make him move firmly in the grasp of the intransigent North.

The American Federal Reserve can’t do nothing.

The British guy can’t do nothing.

This Italian guy can’t do nothing.

Because this is Nothingtown, and the tools they have don’t repair the things that are broken.