Trends This Week – Is the fed stupid, or just playing stupid? – 02.24.16

The Federal Reserve operates the largest printing press on the planet. It seeks to hire the most qualified people to address current economic conditions and design strategies to maximize future market potential. However, when crisis strikes and with global equity markets in turmoil, those hired admit they are out of touch with the present and blindsided by the future. As minutes from their own meetings show, when the Panic of '08 hit, which the Trends Research Institute forecast and named, the Fed was blindsided. Were they stupid then, or just playing stupid? Today, from China’s economy growing at its slowest pace in a quarter century, Japan sinking back into recession, Europe’s stagnant Gross Domestic Product, Asian economies jolted by plummeting exports, emerging-market economies and currencies crashing, commodity indexes gyrating between 1991-to-1999 lows, etc., the “outlook” is clear: Global Recession. What's the Fed's position?  Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer recently said Fed officials “simply do not know" what course of action to anticipate since “it is still early to judge the ramifications of the increased market volatility of the first seven weeks of 2016."

Are they stupid, or playing stupid by not seeing the Panic of 2016