"Is the Fed Making A Mistake By Focusing More On The Economy Than On Inflation?"
Video Transcription
Response of Ken Barker from Q-Group: “Yes. The Fed is trashing the dollar and making
it very tough for savers… “Helicopter” Ben may yet surpass… “Bubbles” Greenspan
in monetary irresponsibility
Host: Amanda Drury
Host: Well let’s now get to Todd Everts. He is President and CEO at Wall
Street Global. Todd, great to have you with us today. What is your response to this
question of the day whether or not the Fed should be focusing more on the inflation
as opposed to the downside risks to the economy which seems to be at the moment?
Todd G. Everts: Well I think Ken hit a couple of points quite directly and
that is the fact that economic stimulus has not been proven as a way to prop up
the US economy rather when you take actionable measures that provide manufacturers
to increase their spending, hire more people, increase their output, that was what
will drive the consumer to come back in to the store. Simply handing the consumer
a $900, $1200 rebate in the form of a check or in the form of a tax rebate next
year isn’t going to drive the economy. It’s just noise and it’s unfortunate that
we’re getting so much noise obviously during a year of politics up before the election
because it’s really not going to change things and that’s what the US needs.
Host: Sure and the government has to be seen to be doing something, doesn’t
it? Otherwise it could be accused of just being a lame duck. So you don’t reckon
the fiscal stimulus packages going to have much impact, it’s not going to basically
be working its way into the economy into the second half… Anyway, what about more
Fed cuts…is that going to help by making it easy for small businesses for example
to get a loan?
Todd G. Everts: These Fed cuts are going to help the businesses but it’s
not going to drive the economy. The 20th century was about the United States but
the 21st century is really going to be about emerging markets and obviously here
we are in Asia. The US and the US spender doesn’t understand world markets...they
don’t travel like Europeans do or even like Asians are starting to do. They don’t
understand that world markets have changed and the US has not adapted over the last
20 years to that change. And so virtually every form of outsourcing is moving its
way to India, the Philippines, China…manufacturing is continuing to increase…these
“Bubbles” in gyrations in the markets locally here in Hong Kong and across Asia
are really temporary. They’re going to have an upward trend while the US and the
dollar’s going to have a downward trend.
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