On Tuesday (Nov. 15), the New York Federal Reserve announced a 12-week pilot program in partnership with several large commercial banks to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The “proof of concept” program will test an “interoperable digital money platform” on a regulated liability network (RLN) for “technical feasibility, legal viability, and business applicability of distributed ledger technology,” according to a press release.
After running a $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal 2022, the US government took up right where it left off to start fiscal 2023 — running a big budget deficit.
The October budget deficit came in at $87.8 billion despite another month of healthy government receipts, according to the latest Treasury statement.
The October CPI data came in a bit cooler than expected, but the market reaction was hot and furious. Peter Schiff broke down the CPI data and the market reaction to it in his podcast. Despite the spin, Peter said the Fed isn’t making any progress in fighting inflation.
They say perception is reality. Based on the October CPI data, the perception is inflation has peaked. But what’s the reality? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the CPI data along with the markets’ reaction to it and wonders if the inflation victory dance is a little premature. He also talks about the big rally in gold and central bank gold buying.
Last week, the Federal Reserve delivered a 75-basis point rate hike, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell failed to deliver the more doveish rhetoric that many expected. The messaging did not indicate much softening in the stance on the future trajectory of rate hikes, despite an apparent “soft pivot” the week before.
In his podcast, Peter broke down Powell’s messaging and pointed out a number of very scary admissions that came out of the Fed meeting.
The Federal Reserve delivered a 75-basis point rate hike at its November meeting, as expected. But what’s next? That’s a little harder to decipher. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the mixed messaging that came out of the Fed meeting and concludes the central bank’s monetary policy is “a wing and a prayer.” He also covers the recently released Q3 gold demand data.
The Federal Reserve sent out mixed messages after its November FOMC meeting leaving markets wondering just how much more the central bank will tighten monetary policy.
As expected, the Fed delivered another 75 basis point rate hike, pushing the Fed funds rate to between 3.75 and 4%. The last time interest rates were this high was in January 2008.
Despite all kinds of economic bad news, as of Friday, the Dow Jones was on pace for the best October in history. As Peter Schiff explained in his podcast, this demonstrates the fact that for now, bad news is good news, and stocks are priced for perfection in an imperfect world.
Most people have a sense of history that goes back about two weeks. This is especially true in the world of investing and finance. As a result, people have a hard time seeing the big picture. For instance, a lot of people think the current inflation crisis was only due to the Fed failing to respond fast enough. As Peter Schiff pointed out, this inflation was in fact decades in the making.
And as James Anthony pointed out, the current inflation problem along with all of the big economic crises that occurred in the 20th and 21st centuries have one commonality — progressive government coupled with monetary policies run by the Federal Reserve.
A lot of people seem to think that if the Fed had just started fighting inflation a little earlier, we wouldn’t have seen the rapidly rising prices that continue today. The mistake, they say, was thinking inflation was transitory. But as Peter Schiff has pointed out, this problem didn’t start last year, or even with the pandemic. This problem was decades in the making.
And at the root of the problem was year after year of easy money. Wall Street was drunk on cheap money for a decade and it is ultimately going to end in another financial crisis.
