About this episode
* Aliens didn't invade the Earth, and the Federal Reserve didn't raise interest rates * If you remember, I was pegging the probability of each at roughly the same * True to form, the Federal Reserve did pretty much exactly what I thought they were going to do and not raise interest rates * Now I thought they might have tried to lower expectations for the probability in the markets of a December rate hike * Even though they didn't say that, that was the effect of their announcement * If you look at the dot plots, for example, the FOMC members were looking for rates to be lower for longer * Surely, if you look at the reaction to the market, the market does not appear to be worried about a rate hike coming in either November or December, even though the Fed still maintains the narrative that the possibility still exists * The Fed reiterated that the case for a rate hike had increased * But, they chose not to raise rates despite their narrative * Their reason was that they wanted to see more data * This is exactly what I said after Yellen's statement at Jackson Hole * The media interpreted her statement as a signal that a September rate hike was likely * What did I say? * I said the Fed didn't say anything about hiking * They were speaking about the case for a hike * I described it as a scale from, say 0 - 10 * If the case were a 3 and then it became a 4, the case had strengthened * But if the Fed needs 10, and we're only at 4, they're not going to hike * They never came clean about their scale, they simply said that the case for a hike had increased * That doesn't mean they were going to raise rates, and that's exactly what happened * It's interesting that in all of the prepared remarks and in the following press conference * Janet Yellen never once admitted that the economy is weakening * In fact, she continues to pretend that everything is great * Ironically, one of the questions in the Q&A had to do with Donald Trump's position that the Fed is not raising interest rates for political reasons * Which, of course is exactly why they're not raising them * If they raise interest rates, everything would collapse, and so would Hillary Clinton's election prospects Our Sponsors: * Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy