Meet the new Fed Chair, same as the old Fed Chair:
“This extraordinary commitment is still needed and will be for some time, and I believe that view is widely shared by my fellow policymakers at the Fed,” [Fed Chief Janet] Yellen said. “The scars from the Great Recession remain, and reaching our goals will take time.”
Stocks rose as Yellen highlighted the Fed’s commitment to spur the economy and put 10.5 million unemployed Americans back to work. Share prices fell on March 19, when she said in a press conference that the Fed might start raising the benchmark interest rate above zero about six months after ending its bond purchase program. Yellen didn’t mention a timetable today.
“It is an indirect pushback,” said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies LLC in New York. “I don’t think she could directly contradict what she said at the press conference, so she did the next best thing, which was to paint a picture of a Fed that is going to be accommodative for a long, long time.”
ZIRP today, ZIRP tomorrow, ZIRP forever!
Or was I supposed to do the gag this time using QE instead of ZIRP? It’s so hard to remember these days.
Whatevs — it’s free money to infinity and beyond!
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