David Malpass correctly identifies today’s market trouble as poor fundamentals glossed over by Federal Reserve money printing.
As this month’s stock and bond market gyrations showed, traders are obsessively focused on every nuance of the Fed’s monetary plans. Billions of dollars are at stake for Wall Street, which profits mightily from the Fed’s bond buying and cheap credit.
The problem is the broader economy’s poor performance in growth and jobs. The Fed, which was once a key proponent of market-based economic policies, has forced U.S. interest rates to near zero for four-and-a-half years with no plans to stop. It has bought nearly $3 trillion in bonds, with the express goal of channeling credit to the government, government-owned enterprises and large corporations in the hope that this will boost employment.
