Oddest Press Release of the Day

I guess this just couldn’t wait until tomorrow:

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has issued the following press release:

Board announces website redesign
The Federal Reserve Board’s website has a new look and additional features designed to improve usability.  Intuitive navigational tools, new fonts, and updated graphics and layouts will help users access information more quickly and easily.

The color scheme for the website (www.federalreserve.gov) has been enhanced and more graphics have been added.  A new layout makes the site’s content simpler to find.

Good thing there is nothing else going on today . . .

Fed_site_redesign

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What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:
  1. Pool Shark commented on Sep 18

    Wow…

    Talk about re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

  2. zero529 commented on Sep 18

    I’m curious, Barry — did you already write blog entries to address the possibilities of zero, 0.25, and 0.5 changes in the FFR or were you planning on waiting for the decision to come out first?

  3. a guy called john commented on Sep 18

    hilarious. as a web developer myself, i love it. talk about a site launch. i wonder if the department had a party today…

  4. Pool Shark commented on Sep 18

    Well, Ben has gone and done it…

    Both the target and discount rates cut by 50 bps.

    I’m outta here!

    (Selling dollars, buying Euros, Pounds, and gold…)

  5. Eddie commented on Sep 18

    It went up 100 points in a single second it appeared.

  6. LAWMAN commented on Sep 18

    Apparently you should be buying the DOW. I guess everythings good now….

  7. shoeless commented on Sep 18

    Condolences for the beleagured USD can be sent to the poor working stiffs, on whom this burden will ultimately rest.

  8. michael schumacher commented on Sep 18

    my streamer could’nt keep up with just the SPY

    There were people who knew…..and they sent it up the millisecond it appeared.

    Kiss off the concept of the dollar….

    The Fed can now be added to the list of Market Makers…….they proved it today pandering to the bullshit and noise that one month of data is louder as opposed to the several months of inflationary data.

    Fuck us All…thanks Ben

    Ciao
    MS

  9. karl smith commented on Sep 18

    I didn’t expect this much buying on 50 bps but perhaps with Lehman this morning it makes sense. Still, its hard not think this is an overshoot.

    Can anyone get the text of the statement. I haven’t been able to get on the Fed website.

  10. a guy called john commented on Sep 18

    The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 50 basis points to 4-3/4 percent.

    Economic growth was moderate during the first half of the year, but the tightening of credit conditions has the potential to intensify the housing correction and to restrain economic growth more generally. Today’s action is intended to help forestall some of the adverse effects on the broader economy that might otherwise arise from the disruptions in financial markets and to promote moderate growth over time.

    Readings on core inflation have improved modestly this year. However, the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain, and it will continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.

    Developments in financial markets since the Committee’s last regular meeting have increased the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook. The Committee will continue to assess the effects of these and other developments on economic prospects and will act as needed to foster price stability and sustainable economic growth.

    Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Charles L. Evans; Thomas M. Hoenig; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Frederic S. Mishkin; William Poole; Eric Rosengren; and Kevin M. Warsh.
    In a related action, the Board of Governors unanimously approved a 50-basis-point decrease in the discount rate to 5-1/4 percent. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston, New York, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco.

  11. Stuart commented on Sep 18

    Where am I going to store all that bullion I’m going to need.

  12. KP commented on Sep 18

    Greenspan lives on.

  13. David commented on Sep 18

    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

    “Fare thee well at once. The glowworm shows the matin to be near, And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
    Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.”
    Shakespeare

  14. a guy called john commented on Sep 18

    guess i should run lock in some of those CD rates specials while i still can with all the money i saved cuz, y’know, it was the responsible thing to do. unbelievable.

  15. michael schumacher commented on Sep 18

    Bernancke is just a tool of the Bushies

    “Readings on core inflation have improved modestly this year. However, the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain, and it will continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.”

    But while we are at it let’s just lower the rates anyway since all our talk about inflation has been just that….talk…

    We get to deal with the ramifications of this for years to come…and the republicans just bought themselves alot of votes.

    Fucking Travesty our market has become….

    Ciao
    MS

  16. VJ commented on Sep 18

    The “Greenspan Put” torch has been passed to the next whore for Wall Street.
    .

  17. John F. commented on Sep 18

    I think the Web site redesign was deflect attention from the Greenspan book tour.

  18. tt commented on Sep 18

    MS ,
    Everyone knew but you —– you’re not part of the conspiracy …. please don’t commit suicide , you seem so sad by all of this , we need you here as the only voice of reason !!!!!

  19. stormrunner commented on Sep 18

    Unanimous vote, including the shameful, he knows nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing Bill Poole ,(Cramers take). A 180 Degree, 9 G turn in monetary minutes., suprised his wings didn’t fall off. Well they’ll need em to soar over the carnage and scoop up the carrion. Things must be much worse than even I imagined.

    Eclectic, what happened he was telegraphing Fiscal constraint?? How’s this gonna help? How could 5% be considered tight? Let’s see if the banks take the money, must nearly be time to get in line, BORROW & BUY-BUY-BUY-BYE

    Oh well batten down the hatches.

  20. matt m. commented on Sep 18

    tt…. easy does it…not fair to engage in a battle if wits with an unarmed man.

  21. VJ commented on Sep 18

    (And down among the little people):

    FAILED LENDER MAKES GRAB FOR EMPLOYEE FUNDS

    Bankrupt American Home Mortgage is attempting to seize as much as $27 million that former employees set aside from paychecks for retirement, according to an attorney representing them.

    Employees say Melville, N.Y.-based American Home Mortgage Investment wants to release retirement money from a trust fund to pay off large creditors. The attorney for a group of former employees alleged American Home or its trustee for the retirement plan “may have acted inappropriately with regard to withholding distributions or encouraging contributions.”

    CNBC LINK

    .

  22. SPECTRE of Deflation commented on Sep 18

    CNBS saying the cuts will improve price stability. ROFLMAO! What a bunch of assclowns! Oil at 82, Gold at 720 and the dollar at 79.50ish but doomed to fall. More inflation should help price stability?

    Barry, what good does it do to look at market returns when wwe are being as kicked by the devaluation of the dollar? Look at NET folks and not the BS they want you to pay attention to.

  23. wunsacon commented on Sep 18

    At the beginning of a Warner Bros. cartoon, anonymous cries of “gold!” can be heard resounding in the hills from numerous unseen prospectors (well, probably all Mel Blanc). I hear this every day now.

  24. Fred commented on Sep 18

    MS…you kiss your mother with that mouth?

  25. SPECTRE of Deflation commented on Sep 18

    THE DOLLAR IS TOAST. I’m going international, oil and oil services, gold and plenty of silver. They have decided to destroy the dollar in order to save the assclowns of Wall Street. Any other investing ideas to get the Hell out of Dodge is welcomed.

  26. Peter commented on Sep 18

    Helicopter Ben to the rescue!

    Put off the (inevitable) recession until after the 2008 election, per comments this weekend.

    Shameful pandering to the addicts IMO.

    We shall pay dearly for this someday.

    Buy buy!

  27. matt m. commented on Sep 18

    C’mon Spectre…that’s been the trade for 3 years now. Glad you caught on.

  28. karl smith commented on Sep 18

    What is this obsession with the dollar and presumption that it will hurt America’s “working stiffs.”

    Last time I checked, the working stiffs in Michigan and North Carolina were watching their factory doors get shut in the face of a dollar that refused to respond to gravity.

    Yes, our happy meal toys from China become more expensive but our Caterpillar built bulldozers become less expensive to the rest of the world.

    A declining dollar redistributes income from the service sector towards the manufacturing sector. Generally speaking that benefits less skilled workers.

    The fact is the dollar needs to slide, not just to stimulate US industry but to rebalance income flows.

  29. Peter commented on Sep 18

    The Fed surprised many by cutting 50 basis pts in the fed funds and 50 in the discount rate, maintaining the spread b/w the 2. With respect to growth, they reiterated the risks to the downside by saying “the tightening of credit conditions has the potential to intensify the housing correction and to restrain economic growth more generally.” They cut 50 in order to get ahead of the curve in helping the economy. On inflation, they basically threw it out the window as a concern by saying again that core readings have improved but some inflation risks remain. THAT’s IT. Forget about the $, forget about oil, forget about gold. When push comes to shove, the Fed will cut to save the economy and the ‘dual mandate’ becomes hallow in its realistic application. The question now is, will today’s action work or is the Fed just playing catch up.

  30. MarkTX commented on Sep 18

    Peter, The Fed is playing Fingerbang….(LOL)

  31. techy2468 commented on Sep 18

    i dont think we get anything by crying over something which has already been done………unless you had bet short on the market….my sympathies.

    so now we all wait and see if the dollar really tanks or it will fall a bit and then it will be business as usual…

  32. Estragon commented on Sep 18

    techy2468,

    My guess is the USD falls a bit, then competitive devaluation kicks in. The yuan is falling with the USD.

  33. Ironman commented on Sep 18

    Well, I suppose if you’re going to make a big, visible change, you might as well do it while people are watching….

  34. Steve Bowles commented on Sep 18

    The US Federal Reserve – the most corrupt Billionaire banker felching entity that has ever pretended to oversee economic and monetary policy. Well done helicopter Ben, you sponsors will get their bonuses back.

  35. hal commented on Sep 18

    So–the Fed has money to redesign website-to have software that models the financial situation-but it is to expensive to calculate m-3.

    Go figure.

  36. hal commented on Sep 18

    So–the Fed has money to redesign website-to have software that models the financial situation-but it is to expensive to calculate m-3.

    Go figure.

  37. Brian commented on Sep 18

    Do I even dare and turn on CNBC cheerleaders today and watch them get all giddy? I really hope I am wrong, but I just dont see how this does anything more than to delay the inevitable correction we need.

  38. Eclectic commented on Sep 18

    Stormrunner,

    http://tinyurl.com/2vgh4o

    Big surprise… especially that Poole tossed in and didn’t squawk after what he’d said in his last speech on monetary policy. It’ll take time to determine if this policy action was justified. I think it was an over-reaction.

    The bond market will tell us if it was the right thing, either by confirming it and pushing long rates and mortgage rates down a bit, or it will reject their action by throwing it back in their faces with higher long rates.

    Jury will be out for a while.

  39. Tom C commented on Sep 18

    ciao

    Guess your shorts didn’t work out too well today. Better luck tomorrow.

    Keep on grinding, dickhead.

  40. Bob A commented on Sep 18

    Every once in a long while Cody Willard says something I agree with:

    “I sure don’t think it’s okay to take billions of dollars from savers and bail out the gamblers. Which is exactly what today did…”

  41. jojo commented on Sep 18

    Bob…that is utter crap!

    Everyone who has a mortgage, home equity line, credit balance is a gambler?

    Pulllease~!

  42. Eclectic commented on Sep 19

    None of us can yet know exactly what inflation is now or what it will be next year, or in 5 years. We may think we do… but we don’t. I could take either side of the argument and put up a passable debate.

    Oil?…Gold?… Yeah, they’re high, and oil works its way into the costs of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, but we’ve been there before… done that before. Gold bugs back two decades ago still haven’t gotten their money back.

    If you’ll think of oil as being like a large storage vat that will eventually run dry… right now it’s still nowhere near to running dry. That mythology is necessary to fuel the enthusiasm… and even panic that it will dry up. Boone Pickens will do well if it goes up… well if it goes down… well if it stays flat. I remember one particular business mag cover years ago (Fortune?) where the oil baron was shotgunning afield with his dogs. Now, he’s whipping Becky Quick around in his Gulfstream, off to China to bird-dog them into a spot of gas. He’ll do well in general, but his picture was on the cover of the business mags back in the days when the oil and gas limited partnerships blew up, and he’s in the news and on the covers now again. They blew up before… they’ll blow up again (and Mr. Bernanke’s FOMC may hasten the blow). It may be that our great-grandchildren will still be floating in oil… Who knows.

    The spigot is just being clamped tightly by the Iraq War and generalized Middle-East conditions that threaten the supplies to the industrialized West. Even China’s increased industrialization hasn’t been the cause (partly yes, but not much). China’s GDP is still relatively small and couldn’t have caused so dramatic an increase in the price of oil. It’s partly from speculation, but mostly because oil is priced in dollars, and USD is being pushed lower by deflation of the earning power of Norte Americana.

    Greenspan was initially criticized for his remarks that the war in Iraq was about oil, because he was viewed as having said the equivalent of “It was because of the greed for oil.” He’s since then explained that he meant that it was because of the strategic threat to the world’s oil supply that Iraq represented. I don’t know if he explains it this way in his book, but it was because of Saddam Hussein’s grandiose ambitions at the time for reestablishing the great Ottoman Turk Empire, with himself as its head… as a sort of Suleyman the Magnificent:

    http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b1suleyman.htm

    Back to inflation:

    If we assume that a weakening economy could result in inflation of, say, 1.5-2%, then another 2.5-3% real return would put long bonds at somewhere in the range of 4-5%. Actually the lower end of that range is about where the 10-Y-T has lived throughout the history of the New’nited States. I have beaten myself to a frazzle on this blog attempting to explain that, but anybody younger than “These Boots Are Made For Walking” just can’t see it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ECyTGZjOJc

    So, let’s give it some time and see what happens. If the Fed is anticipating inflation correctly over the next few years, then a move to an even lower FFs rate isn’t so far removed from being reasonable.

    And, Storm, I think it’s possible that the run on the bank at Northern Rock in Britain may have been enough to get Poole ready for some rowing:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9GOJt5mRIg&mode=related&search=

    BTW, for any of you that selected option #4 for my mythological Death Row Inmate, he says to tell you all THANKS!!, and that even though he sweated buckshot until FED:15 yesterday, it was all worth it.

    And, to you Barringo. I’m actually sweating the 5.250 10-Y-T again (not as much as the D. R. inmate though), because the Fed doesn’t control long rates… Inflationary expectations do that with deus ex-machination, regardless of what Mr. Mishkin thinks. However, the inmate has to sweat it forever… I only have to sweat it until last business day, Ought-7.

  43. michael Schumacher commented on Sep 19

    Tom C TT and MHM

    Fuck all three of you assholes

    You all deserve each other

    Having the Fed be your Market Maker is not a strategy however you seem to think it is and crow on about how wrong anyone is who disagrees with your bullshit

    Have Fun circle jerking each other as you seem to have done last night on this board.

    Ciao
    MS

  44. Fred commented on Sep 19

    MS, do you kiss your mother (or eat) with that mouth?

  45. B commented on Sep 19

    MS , you are a class act

    TROLL

    crawl back into your little hole

  46. tt commented on Sep 19

    MS

    you should be banned from this site for your vitriol and hate

  47. michael Schumacher commented on Sep 19

    TT

    You can dish it out but can’t take it?

    Try using a thesaurus the next time you go after me….

    Ciao
    MS

  48. Fred commented on Sep 19

    MS…this is not a bathroom wall where we “give it and take it”.

    I wonder why Barry give you a pass.

  49. tt commented on Sep 19

    I can take it MS , I just won’t comment in kind with that disgusting language…. you must be from San Diego

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