by James Corbett
TheInternationalForecaster.com
As I write these words we are now only hours away from The Most Important Event Ever to Happen in the History of the Global Economy. Investors are bracing themselves. Markets are anticipating. Journalists are spilling Olympic sized swimming pools of ink on writing headline after headline after headline after headline after headline after headline about this, the deciding economic event of our time.
If only this math actually added up.
No, the great event is not the announcement of the discovery of free energy. Or a major new technological breakthrough that will revolutionize industry and increase productivity. Or even an innovative new theory for how to pull us from the brink of the global derivative black hole collapse. It’s something entirely more ordinary: words.
That’s right, with just a few magic words uttered at today’s meeting of the Economic Club of New York, Fed chair Janet Yellen will cause entire markets to rise or fall. A single declarative sentence could strike down a small country. An effusive adjective could cause an entire industry to boom, a disparaging remark could cause that same industry to collapse. A rising intonation, an arched eyebrow, a significant pause, even a semi-colon could be the difference between rags and riches for millions of workers around the world.
Sound ridiculous? It is. Yet nevertheless this is the situation we’ve arrived at.
As I’ve noted before time and time again in this column, we have entered the “New Normal” where fundamentals do not matter at all, only perception. Do you believe the Fed has solved the market meltdown of ’08? Then they have solved it. Do you believe the skyrocketing debt and geyser of excess liquidity created in the last decade are not a problem? Then they are not a problem. Do you think Janet Yellen can speak rising stocks or a falling dollar into existence? Then she can.
The long story short: the MSM has been playing up the idea of a “Fed revolt” in recent weeks. Don’t get your hopes up. Sadly, this revolt has nothing to do with an angry public finally learning the truth about the Federal Reserve and running the banksters out of town.
Instead, it’s to do with Yellen’s much-scrutinized remarks at this month’s Federal Open Market Committee press conference. After the remarks were run through the usual round of tea leaf reading and innard scrying, it was decided that Yellen was telegraphing a slow down in the rate hikes that the Fed had been projected to engage in this year. In the last couple of weeks, four of the 17 FOMC members have spoken out of turn to say they disagree with this approach and will be voting for or advocating a quicker rate hike schedule, with the first one as early as next month.
So at today’s meeting of the Economic Club of New York, where Yellen will be giving an address, markets around the world are on the edge of their seat to see if Yellen will maintain her dovish stance on the Fed’s monetary approach this year or if she will adopt to the bear’s advanced schedule.
If you don’t believe me that this is a Big Deal that is Driving the Global Economy right now, just look at any of the major financial rags in the last 24 hours. They have explained rising European stocks and sliding futures and a strengthening dollar and easing gold and modestly lower American stocks and who knows what else on the mere anticipation of Yellen’s speech today.
Of course, Yellen is not the first person to have this seemingly infinite power over the global economy. Bernanke had it before her. And Greenspan before him. And presumably every Fed chair before him, too. There’s a reason they’re called the Gods of Money and Greenspan was referred to as a Wizard whose use of the words “irrational exuberance” popped the dotcom bubble.
In this system, central bankers conjure economic reality into existence merely by speaking the words. The very essence of magic. Now it’s Yellen’s turn to have the power to conjure.
If all of this seems insane to you, then congratulations. You’re right. It is insane. But in a system that has been constructed around the whims of the central bankers, this is the result: an economy where one bankster technocrat has the power to push the economy off a cliff or to keep the whole thing levitating simply by commanding it to do so.
For those looking for a solution to this situation, the answer is obvious. Run (don’t walk) away from the banksters’ rigged game. Every step toward disassocating yourself from the bankster system is a step away from this insanity. Alternative and complementary currencies, cryptocurrencies, credit unions, barter, P2P, community organizations, food independence. All of these things are vital steps to be taking if we ever hope to get off the craziness of the central bankster carnival ride otherwise known as the status quo.
Or you could just sit around waiting for Janet Yellen to set the world economy straight.
