James Bullard, one of the Fed's few "inflation hawks" (which is a relative term when we're talking about people who's job it is to debase our currency, so being a hawk on the Fed really just means he's not as overwhelming an inflationist as some of his colleagues) is - out of left field - warning about deflation. Strangely, his argument is that the easy money language of the Fed "extended period of time", etc. is what is driving this. However, really what he's saying is that the interest rate isn't what matters at this point in a deflation cycle, that the Fed needs to be more forceful and adopt further quantitative easing. Interest rate movements simply incent borrowing and money creation whereas QE causes it explicitly.
Folks, QE2 is nearly upon us.
If you think Bernanke, an avowed currency debasor, isn't the puppetmaster coordinating this - even to the point of using one of his biggest inflation hawks to lead the debasement charge - then you are fooling yourself. By the way, Bullard is not just saying the fed needs further quantitative easing, he's saying they need to make an open-ended commitment to QE, they need to explicitly state their QE as part of ongoing policy, and that it should probably be a lot. Not QE2, but QEForever.
The first time around, the Fed simply did "a lot" but didn't make it open ended and explicit enough. Bullard says the Fed won't make the same mistake twice.
Folks, get your AU and AG now. We are entering crazy-land - these guys literally have no idea about the implications of what they are talking about.
BTW, they would not do this unless they were really, really worried about the state of the economy. I watch this and am legitimately frightened.
[HT: TD]
