hammerhead

Dear Ben and George: Time to Do Something

They lowered the FF rate 75 basis points. In the long run, it will do as much for the US domestic economy as lowering the rates to 1/2% did for Japan's domestic economy (18 years in the tank).

Here are my suggestions:

+ Bring all the troops home from Iraq, now. Local base-centric economies will be rejuvinated, and we might save a trillion dollars.

+ End all ethanol subsidies, and food prices will drop.

+ Mandate a one year suspension of all capital gains taxes. That will get the speculators back in the markets. Bernanke did say he wanted a short term solution.

The Bear Turns Mildly Bullish

Crashes do not come from overbought markets. They come from oversold markets. By your own admission, this is an oversold market. 25% of the US is in serious recession, 5 out of 7 monolines are toast, cash strapped states will have to raise muni bond yields in order to borrow in this uninsurable market, the weak GSEs are the only entities holding up what is a modicum of a housing market, we are the greatest debtor nation in the world, our citizens can't pay their credit card debts, our banks need infusions of foreign capital to stay afloat, our troops and resources are bleeding in Iraq, and we have a financial genius for a President. Yep, no reason for this market to continue its decline.