Master class with Murray Perahia, 10/13/2012 at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Fed, Ron Paul, and truth

Former Reagan OMB Director David Stockman was 'allowed' on CNBC recently - much to their chagrin now we suspect - and espoused his own brand of truthiness, starting with this epic tirade:

"Ron Paul is the only one who is right about the Fed, and the Fed is the heart of the problem. They have destroyed the capital markets and the money markets; interest rates mean nothing; everything is trading off the Fed and Wall Street isn't even home - as it's now a bunch of computers trading word-clouds emitted by this central banker and that"

In this environment, he goes on, everyone is being given the wrong signal - i.e. the Ryan/Romney campaign is about restoring vibrant capitalism; how can you do that when the financial markets are dead - the lifeblood of a capitalist system. And that is the problem today.

An excellent discussion ensues diving into the lack of fiscal discipline (that is enabled by a Fed ZIRP) as "[politicians] will never do it when you can keep borrowing free-money forever" and summed up nicely with this subtle sentence:

"The Fed (and the lunatics that run it) are telling the whole world untruths about the cost of money and the price of risk."

From zerohedge.com, Tyler Durden

May we add:

The entire Romney vs. Obama is a Pontiac vs. Buick situation.  Both are (were) GM (RIP Pontiac 2009, Oldsmobile 2004).  There is little difference, they are all built on the same chassis, the sheet metal bends slightly differently to extrapolate our metaphor a bit more,----  and the election process serves to distract citizens from the debt crisis, since neither candidate is truly serious about solving it.  One day the markets will solve it for us, and we'll all wish we had done it ourselves because the consequences will be startling.  And the ramifications worse.  Worldwide depressions spawn World Wars.