Bernanke Signals Future Fed Policy on Interest Rates – Paxforex

Ben Bernanke is out of the door, but he will not take his monetary and fiscal policies with him. Thanks to him the Federal Reserve is suffocating under all-time record debt as he has slashed interest rates down to essentially 0.00%, with a float higher of several basis points. On top of that he has orchestrated not one, but three rounds of economic stimulus in the form of quantitative easing with the latest round amassing an additional $85 billion of debt per month.

Since QE3, the latest round of economic stimulus was announced, the economic output in the US has actually decreased which is the most evident fact that QE is not working. Again, economic output has decreased. The US has not entered a recession yet and GDP figures have been positive quarter-over-quarter, but the figures are less than they were before QE2.

Bernanke was finally asked to leave the Fed in an informal act of being fired and while it is good news that he will no longer abuse the Federal Reserve System, his successor will be even worse when it comes to directing the Fed and making decisions which will impact the US economy and the US Dollar. Janet Yellen has not only indicated that she in essence does not care about anything else besides the unemployment rate, but she has also confirmed that she was clueless about the financial crisis until after it unfolded.

Bernanke paved the way for her to leave interest rates unchanged for a very long time, potentially decades from now. It becomes evident that quantitative easing will remain in place indefinite and Yellen has no intentions to stop the bleeding as she will hold the course and could find herself adding to the stimulus rather than withdrawing it.

Overall the news are very bearish for the US Dollar which has basically no change of recovering against major currency pairs as it also loses its save haven status. This will soon be followed by the US Dollar no longer being the global reserve currency and finally lead to commodity prices no longer being quoted in USD.

Written by Paxforex