JACKRASMUS.COM: …This prediction was based on the analysis last November, appearing in my April 2012 book, “Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few (also available this website), in which I showed data indicating an extremely high correlation between the introduction of QE programs and surges in stock and other financial markets: i.e. when markets begin to falter, QEs are introduced, and markets surge once again. Table 5.1 on p. 90 of my ‘Obama’s Economy’ book shows that as soon as the stock market begins to slow and decline, another QE is introduced. Following that introduction, the stock market takes off once again. When the QE in question begins to conclude and wind down, the stock market begins to falter once more, leading to talk again and eventual introduction of another QE–which again results in a resurgence of the stock market. The table 5.1 identified this relationship for QE1 and QE2, which amounted to more than $2.3 trillion injected by the Fed into banks and investors’ pockets, in the form of buying from them various subprime and other mortgages and securities at their full purchase values instead of their current depressed values in many cases. In other words, investors and banks ware subsidized as a result of Federal Reserve QE money injections.
Banks and investors then take this ‘windfall’ from the Fed and invest it into stocks, junk bonds, derivatives, commodities (oil futures being a favorite), emerging markets’ exchange traded funds, foreign exchange futures, etc.–i.e. various speculative financial instruments. Or, in the case of some banks, they just take the money and hoard it. Whether hoarded or funneled off to speculators, the QE injection is not loaned to real businesses to create jobs. In other words, what they don’t funnel offshore, or into financial securities, they just hoard, which now amounts to around $1.7 trillion in excess bank reserves the banks are simply sitting on. Bank lending to small-medium businesses stagnates or even declines. Very few jobs are the result of the trillions pumped into them by QEs that are either hoarded or diverted.
Nor do QE programs have much impact on housing recovery. They may reduce mortgage rates a little, but low rates are not the solution to the lack of housing recovery to date. Banks may publicly report available low mortgage rates but that doesn’t mean banks actually lend at those rates except to a very, very small select group of buyers. Despite low rates, banks the past three years have imposed numerous and onerous non-rate terms and conditions for getting a mortgage loan for most home-buyers. A buyer can get a 3.75% mortgage loan, but only if he puts 40% down, has a perfect 800 plus credit score, excess monthly income, and keep $100k in accounts in the bank’s branch. A recent front page headline in the global business daily, The Financial Times, indicated the same. Quoting a Deutsche Bank analyst, “Very little is likely to make it through immediately to consumers”… (more)
