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Technology Stocks : JDS Uniphase (JDSU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jimbo who wrote (8820)	4/14/2000 10:36:00 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

The idea that the Fed won't raise rates going into election season has no basis in reality. Reasons (from beefing): * Pre-Greenspan history does not matter: There is no institutional bias within the Fed regarding political pressures. Different chairmen will respond differently to such pressures, so looking at what Preston Martin did in election years as a guide to what Alan Greenspan will do is not a useful exercise. * Greenspan history doesn't offer much of a track record: Greenspan has only been chairman through three presidential election years. In two of those years, 1992 and 1996, there was no threat of rate hikes, so political pressure was never an issue. Only in 1988 was tightening an issue ahead of an election. * Greenspan is one-for-one in ignoring political pressure: If ever there was a year in which political pressure should have been a factor, it was 1988. Greenspan had been chairman for just a year, he was not the deity that he is now as his first months were remembered for a market crash, and he was appointed by a Republican president whose VP (Bush) was running for president. Even with all of those reasons to feel pressure, Greenspan tightened in August and September; the final move coming barely a month before the election. So much for pressure. * Political pressure is the least of his problems: Senators didn't just reconfirm Greenspan for his third term, they pretty much deified him. This is a man who is praised by Democrats and Republicans to the point where he can nary do wrong. He has many concerns -- not least a feared asset price bubble -- but political pressure is not one of them.