On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran another Fed “scoop” called “Officials Contemplate Thresholds for Rate Cuts“.
At the risk of hurting feelings, it’s a pitiful excuse for journalism – another cookie-cutter piece that finds Nick Timiraos employing the same template he always uses in the course of pretending to say something meaningful.
Timiraos relies on the same formula over and over again: He cites “interviews and public remarks” on the way to suggesting officials are leaning in one direction or another when it comes to the likely course of policy.
It’s an absurd charade, to be sure.
To the extent Timiraos is rehashing or otherwise summarizing remarks made in public without providing any additional analysis, he’s not saying anything that’s worth saying.
If, on the other hand, the idea is to emphasize a common thread in order to calibrate market expectations at the behest of the Fed itself, Nick’s monotone cadence and ham-handed delivery together serve to strip away whatever thin veneer of subtlety might have existed had policymakers chosen a messenger who is some semblance of adept at wielding his digital pen.
Just read the first two sentences of this cringe-worthy waste of pixels:
Federal Reserve officials are starting to talk about the conditions under which they would cut interest rates, including a scenario where inflation drifts lower even if the economic growth doesn’t falter.
Such a scenario isn’t seen as particularly likely, and a rate cut isn’t imminent or under consideration for their meeting April 30-May 1. But the thresholds for such action have been a topic of conversations in recent interviews and public remarks.
It’s possible Nick’s job is to write vacuous summaries of recent Fedspeak attached to headlines designed to garner maximum eyeballs and thereby clicks. If that’s the case, he’s at least succeeded on the “vacuous” front. Because if you read the entire linked post above, he doesn’t say anything at all. Everybody who follows markets is aware of what officials are debating right now and even if you had no idea about the current state of US monetary policy, you’d still have a decent shot at writing a take that’s at least as accurate as Nick’s by virtue of the fact that because rates can only do three things – rise, fall or stay the same – there’s a solid chance that officials are debating what kinds of conditions would warrant a cut at any given time.
On the other hand, it’s possible Nick is telegraphing something on behalf of the Fed, but if that’s the case, he’s doing so in a manner so transparent that he might as well just replace all the punctuation with animated, winking emojis (“Rate cuts aren’t seen as particularly likely right now… WINK WINK”, etc.).
Any Fed cut would be immediately dusted for Trump’s (small) fingerprints. Over the last six months, US monetary policy has been subjected to near 24-7 criticism emanating from two notoriously moronic sock puppets (Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow), one US president with the mental acuity of a chimpanzee (and the temperament of that same chimpanzee, only tweaked on inhaled lines of crushed up amphetamine) and, most recently, a homophobic droid whose engineers inexplicably hardwired religious zeal into its AI (Mike Pence called for rate cuts earlier this month).
Hilariously, the combined credibility deficit of Kudlow, Moore, Pence and Trump is so large that it makes Herman Cain look marginally “qualified” by comparison, a ridiculous situation befitting of the ridiculous times we’re forced to live in.
Of course Cain’s nomination to the Fed was doomed from the beginning, which is why, over the last month, we’ve dedicated nearly a dozen posts to Stephen Moore and only two to Herman (the funniest one on Cain is here).
On Monday, Trump made it official. Cain will not be nominated.
“My friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board”, the president lamented, in his fifth tweet of the day. “I will respect his wishes. Herman is a great American who truly loves our Country!”
As Corey Lewandowski would say, “Womp, womp.”
As a reminder, Cain’s nomination was dead as of last week, after four Republican Senators indicated they’d likely oppose it.
But just because US monetary policy won’t benefit from Cain’s legendary economic insights and the accumulated wisdom of years spent laboring in the pizza business, doesn’t mean the situation isn’t still on the fast track to becoming a politicized farce where rate cuts are “necessary” to rescue an economy that everyone (including the people cutting rates) continue to characterize as “very healthy”. Just ask Nick Timiraos.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
-George Orwell
I have always enjoyed your writings but I am thoroughly disgusted that you have disrespected and denigrated chimpanzees in the way you have. To compare wonderful and intelligent chimpanzees to the Orange Blob is a step too far and can no longer be tolerated. Therefore I respectfully ask that you apologize to the superior species immediately!!!