Thursday, November 11, 2010

Fed Manipulating the Stock Market

"The Fed has spent the last 15, 20 years manipulating the stock market. I think they know what they do has no direct impact on the economy, the only weapon they have is the so-called wealth effect: if you can drive the market up 50%, people feel richer, they feel a little more confident, and the academics reckon they spend about 3% of that. The problem is they know very well how to stimulate the market, but they step away when the market gathers steam, and resign any responsibility for moderating a bull market that may get out of control, and I fear that the market will continue to rise, it will be continuously speculative. As a consequence you get a boom and bust... I think the Fed should settle for just controlling the money supply, not controlling the economy." -- Jeremy Grantham, Chairman of the Board of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO).