Editorial: Why a Responsible Fed Won't Lower Rates Anytime Soon.

Notwithstanding the perceived subprime "crisis", a responsible Fed can't lower rates anytime soon. Why?

Because the consumer is finally being told, in no uncertain terms, to smarten up, stop spending more money than you have, and save a little bit. With this message, (and a puncturing of the home-ATM cash-machine) inflation will finally begin to get tamed.

Any loosening of the money supply at this point, while mitigating the short-term damage that will soon become evident in bloated housing markets, will only move that day of reckoning into the future. A future time which which would then have bleaker, more uncertain and more unstable fundamentals, from which to try making essentially the same maneuver.

No, dear readers, this is the medicine that great-great-grandmother used to force down great-grandmother's throat: a nasty-smelling, foul-tasting, herbal concoction that nearly gagged the dear girl. But medicine that helped the patient recover sooner, and more robustly.

To lower interest rates at this time is the equivalent of turning up the heat in the house, so that the feverish patient may feel comfortable. Foolish. Understandable to some, with the child whining so loudly but, all the same, foolish.

And a responsible Fed just won't do that.


JW

The Confused Capitalist