While the corporate propaganda-machine (i.e. the “free press”) provides little in the way of “news” any more, it has made up for this deficiency (somewhat) by becoming a regular source of comedy.
The script-writers at Reuters penned their own hilarious farce on May 31st, titled “Federal Reserve Puzzled by Yield Curve Steepening”. In this latest effort at corporate, “slap-stick” humor, we find the Federal Reserve and its witless chairman claiming to be mystified by the rapid deflation of the U.S. Treasuries “bubble”. As all the “experts” exclaimed, immediately after the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, “who knew that a bubble could burst?” (see “Greenspan: spotting a bubble is easy”)
To be more specific, Reuters stated that Fed officials were pondering which possible cause of this deflating-bubble was most likely:
Was it due to increasing “certainty” of a U.S. “economic recovery”?
Does this indicate that foreign investors are “worried about the deterioration in the U.S. fiscal outlook”?, or;
Is this the result of China dumping long-term Treasuries for shorter-term instruments – in anticipation of a spike in U.S. inflation?
For regular readers, it would take less time than that required for Intel's (INTC) speediest micro-processor to reject #1. This leaves people who inhabit the real world left with the answers in #2 and #3 (or a combination of the two).
However, we are told by the Reuters propagandists that
Fed insiders said they have a problem blaming the steepening of the yield curve just on the [countless trillions of new, U.S. government debt, and gigantic, corresponding] extra supply of new Treasury debt.
(On a market which was already totally saturated with U.S. debt).
The reason for this skepticism? The catastrophic, U.S. fiscal picture “has been evident for months”, while “the dramatic steepening of the curve only occurred this week.”
You really have to wonder why these media corporations cannot find better script-writers than this for their propaganda. Let me respond to this “skepticism”.
First of all, the steepening of the yield curve has been increasing gradually for months – not simply one “week”. Second, I would like to introduce the members of the Federal Reserve and the Reuters propagandists to a concept known as “technical analysis”.
In the world of “technical analysis”, traders often do not immediately react to fundamental factors in the economy – no matter how powerful – unless/until there is statistical evidence of a new trend emerging in markets. At that point (in this age of computerized, trading algorithms), the moves are sudden and violent.
What we are left with, after stripping away the propaganda, is that the Federal Reserve is essentially expressing “surprise” that foreign investors didn't start dumping U.S. Treasuries sooner. And this is supposed to help “calm” U.S. bond markets?
Clearly, at this point, the U.S. propaganda-machine would be much better off finding the best Hollywood scriptwriter which money can buy and then having all of its propaganda outlets peddle an 100% identical message.
What becomes increasingly apparent each day is that none of the brain-dead government officials, the Wall Street Liars, or the media-parrots have the brain-power to ad lib with their lies. Instead, each time one of these stooges opens their mouths all they are doing is discrediting dozens (if not hundreds) of previous lies. What a waste of good propaganda.
The problem at this point is the problem which confronts all compulsive liars. As the mountain of lies grows and grows, the likelihood that each new lie will discredit old lies is now increasing exponentially. The best course of action for all these co-conspirators would be to jointly “plead the 5th Amendment” - their right to avoid self-incrimination.
Now that is something which people could believe.
Disclosure: I hold no position in Intel
