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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Post-Crash Index-Moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (86053)	2/22/2013 8:25:15 AM
From: posthumousone	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 119362

let's make sure the media scares everyone about cutting spending.... <<Q: What's the big overall picture? A: A series of cuts to federal agencies that would lead to longer lines at the nation's borders, less money for teachers and more hassle at airport checkpoints>> Damn fiscal conservative, they don't care about the poor teachers and travelers. They hate children

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (86053)	2/22/2013 8:53:10 AM
From: ggersh	2 Recommendations Respond to of 119362

Says it best, if we didn't have any down days every day is an up day for the markit. Spain's "Inverse Austerity" Leads To Multi-Year High Budget DeficitSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 02/22/2013 - 08:01 For a country that laments the imposition of draconian "austerity" measures, now allegedly in their third year, which have so far seen government revenues slide, while spending rises, Spain sure has a problem with figuring out how it is supposed to work. Yet while the world was shocked back in December 2011 when Spain quietly announced its budget deficit would jump from 6% to 8.5%, before finally settling on 8.9% of GDP, today's announcement that the 2012 Spanish deficit was a whopping 10.2% of 2012 GDP hardly caused any commotion. Apologists will quickly say that this budget gap was boosted by the 3.2% increase due to setting up the bad bank, and rolling bank bailouts, and of course they will be right: just as all those economists were right to say that when one excludes all the negatives, US Q4 GDP was in fact positive. Or, indeed, as Goldman said to ignore this week's negative initial claims and new housing starts data: after all they too were negative. In fact, when one excludes all the negative trading days in 2013, the stock market has not had a down day yet. As for Spain, too bad the country can't have its broke bank cake and eat the budget surplus that would result "if only" things were different.

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (86053)	2/22/2013 12:06:58 PM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 119362

Well, I was wrong and Fed was nervous and saw the need to get on their tallest soapbox and reiterate its QEternity proclamation --------------------- Fed's Bullard-Policy to stay easy despite exit chatter By Jason Lange and Pedro da Costa \| Reuters – 1 hour 48 minutes ago Email Recommend Tweet Print View PhotoReuters/Reuters - President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis James Bullard poses during an interview at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Peter Newcomb (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve will keep its monetary policy stance loose for a long while despite increasing signs of concern among policymakers about the potential costs of asset buying, a top Fed official said on Friday. "Fed policy is very easy and it's going to stay easy for a long time," James Bullard, St. Louis Fed president, said in an interview with CNBC television. Minutes released from the U.S. central bank's policy meeting last month showed a number of officials think the Fed might have to slow or stop buying bonds before seeing the pickup in hiring which the program is designed to deliver. Bond buying is one of the key elements in the Fed's monetary stimulus. Many analysts nevertheless think the Fed's leadership will determine the economic benefits of the maintaining the bond purchases for some time are likely to outweigh the financial risks. Bullard, who has a vote this year on the Fed's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), has expressed caution about expanding the central bank's balance sheet too far. He has advocated scaling back the bond purchases as the labour market improves. On Friday, Bullard acknowledged more voices within the FOMC are pressing to scale back bond buying. Some Fed members are concerned their easy monetary policy could soon fuel inflation. "The idea of tapering the program at some point in the future may be gaining some steam on the committee," he said. But Bullard also noted that the inflation rate is not threatening to breach the Fed's 2 percent target. "The Fed has room to manoeuvre because of this," he said. The Fed has more than tripled the size of its balance sheet since 2008 to around $3 trillion (1.96 trillion pounds) through a series of bond-buying programs. It opted in January to keep purchasing assets at an $85 billion (55 billion pounds) monthly pace until the U.S. labour market outlook improved substantially. In a policy shift late last year, the Fed committed to keeping interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate drops to 6.5 percent, as long as inflation is not forecast to go above 2.5 percent over a one- to two-year horizon. The jobless rate stood at 7.9 percent in January. While many analysts expect the Fed to keep its bond-buying program in place throughout 2013, some worry this could fuel asset bubbles. Bond-buying programs in other countries are also seen as exacerbating this risk. "I don't think they (in the Fed) are vigilant in terms of other central banks and their quantitative easing policies," Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer of bond giant PIMCO, told the same CNBC program. "And I don't think they are vigilant in terms of asset prices." (Reporting by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, G Crosse)