Bill Mitchell — Cancel your subscriptions to Time Magazine

The US information war turns from Russia and China to the American people.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Cancel your subscriptions to Time Magazine
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Hunter Blair — TIME runs incoherent rant on U.S. debt as cover story

Hunter Blair smacks down Jim Grant and TIME.

After a too-short hiatus, fear-mongering about the debt is back in a big way. TIME magazine is so worried that they’ve taken it upon themselves to not only put out an entire series to remind people that they must still fear the debt boogeyman, but have also allowed the headline story to center on long-debunked ramblings about the glories of the gold standard. There is so much wrong in the headline story that it would take a treatise to correct, but let’s just focus on a couple of easy things.…

Economic Policy Institute
TIME runs incoherent rant on U.S. debt as cover story

Hunter Blair

Stephen Gandel — What 'Time' Gets Wrong About America's $13.9 Trillion Debt

Stephen Gandel smacks down Jim Grant.

Fortune

What 'Time' Gets Wrong About America's $13.9 Trillion Debt
Stephen Gandel

Jeff Spross — Why America's gigantic national debt is a good thing

Jeff Spross smacks down Jim Grant.

The Week
Why America's gigantic national debt is a good thing
Jeff Spross

Owen Davis — Time Magazine Is Wrong: You Shouldn’t Ever Worry About Your Share Of The US National Debt

Owen Davis smacks down Jim Grant — and Time Magazine.

International Business Times
Time Magazine Is Wrong: You Shouldn’t Ever Worry About Your Share Of The US National Debt
Owen Davis

Michael Hiltzik — Time's debt scare cover story is a journalistic — and economic — train wreck

Michael Hiltzik smacks down Jim Grant — and Time Magazine.

Los Angeles Times
Time's debt scare cover story is a journalistic — and economic — train wreck

Michael Hiltzik

Jordan Weissmann — Time Magazine’s New Cover Story Is Every Bad Conservative Argument About the National Debt Wrapped Into One

Jordan Weissmann smacks down Jim Grant.

Slate — Moneybox
Time Magazine’s New Cover Story Is Every Bad Conservative Argument About the National Debt Wrapped Into One
Jordan Weissmann

Matt O'Brien — This is the worst argument about the national debt you’ll ever find

Matt O'Brien smacks down Jim Grant.

The Washington Post — Wonkblog
This is the worst argument about the national debt you’ll ever find

Matt O'Brien

All the morons who wrongly predicted higher rates, for years, are now saying rates have to come down.

All the idiots (like "Big Bird" Jim Grant, pictured) wrongly wropredicted skyrocketing interest rates when the Fed started to engage in all it extraordinary monetary operations eight years ago are now predicting the Fed will have to lower interest rates right away.



What fucking morons.

And the dumb shit, clueless media, like CNBC, keeps bringing these assholes on their air.

LOL!! Jim Grant wrong yet again. Fed removes "patient."

This just in...

Jim Grant was wrong again as I predicted. Fed removed the word "patient" from its guidance.

So far, however, dollar getting slammed and stocks rising. Hmmm....

Jim Grant...the guy who's been wrong almost as much as Peter Schiff (but more clownish) makes a Fed prediction. So do the opposite!

Jim Grant is like a funny cartoon character. Like Big Bird. Tall. Lanky. Goofy bow ties (like Jim Rogers). A doofus. He's even funnier looking than Schiff, but just as wrong--on interest rates, inflation, QE, the dollar, gold, the economy...you name it.

He says things like this:

"Central banks the world over have been suppressing [rates], manipulating them, and otherwise manhandling them," Grant argued, predicting "this experiment will end in failure" because price controls never work."

"Suppressing rates?"

"Manhandling rates?"

What's with the reference to masculinity (manhandling)? He seems to be terrified by it. It's some kind of violation (rape?) in his mind. It's a womanish statement.

And price controls never work? They work for monopolists, Jimbo. All the time. Just ask John D. Rockefeller.

Anyway he's saying the Fed will never get rid of the word "patient" when it comes to describing their position on accomodation.

With Grant saying that, I'll take that bet. I bet they remove it at today's meeting and in their statement. I'll buy the dollar and sell stocks for a trade. For today. Just to bet against Jim Grant.

Anti-Yellen groups pop up making their worn out case

There's a new group out there opposing Janet Yellen's nomination as Fed Chief because they say she's an "inflationist."

These guys don't give up.

Check out the video that this group made and in particular, the idiotic comments by Jim Grant, who keeps saying the same things over and over and over and has never been right in his life.

And there's this by James G. Rickards, anotehr gold blug, hard money, debt doomsday, inflationista who says that Bernanke and his "helicopter money" well, that was nothing. The REAL helicopter money is coming with Yellen.

They just don't give up.

Jim Grant: "The Fed owns the stock market"

Jim Grant is a big doofus. I see him walking down Wall Street nearly every day, passing my office, looking every bit the part of Big Bird from Sesame Street, only with a scowl. And to think I used to like this guy! But that was before I met Warren Mosler and discovered MMT.

For those of you who don't know, Grant is publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, which is the out-of-paradigm, hard-money-advocating, pompously-written rag sheet that he's been putting out for ages.

Like all of these Austrian clowns, Grant's in demand with the media. That's probably why he showed up on Tom Keene's radio show on Bloomberg the other day, where he droned on like some lunatic conspiracy theorist, hurling his usual ignorant attacks at the Fed and central banks in general. From Grant's mouth came such enlightened statements as "central banks were confusing the 'black art' of central planning (what isn't centrally planned these days, anyway?) with the traditional art of central banking" (Huh??) and other such nonsense.

But his best line was this:

"The Fed owns the stock market."

I kid you not. That's what he said...the Fed OWNS the stock market.

Oh really? Well, here is a screenshot of the Fed's most recent statement. Can anyone show me where you see stocks, equities, S&P futures or anything even remotely stock related on "Factors Affecting Reserve Balances?"

If you've perused the statement you'll see that there is nothing even close to stocks on the Fed's balance sheet. Just a bunch of government securities, loans, some foreign currency, and a tiny bit of gold.

Now don't get me wrong. I fully understand what Grant is alluding to. He means that the Fed's "manipulation of interest rates" (yeah, that's what the Fed does, Jimmy) could be an effort to get to get people to put money into the stock market on the hopes that higher stock prices feed through to higher confidence, more spending and investment, rising employment, etc.

That may or may not work, but one thing is crystal clear...there is no direct channel to the stock market from lower interest rates. None. Granted, some might argue lower rates make stocks more attractive from a valuation standpoint (all else being equal) and that might be enough of a reason to get some people to buy (and others to sell), but there is no direct channel from interest rates to higher stock prices. If you don't believe me, check out Japan. Interest rates there have been zero for the better part of 20 years and stocks haven't done anything. Even worse, they've gone down.

What, then, is Jim Grant talking about and why is Tom Keene according him so much reverence? (Keene seems positively smitten by Grant.)

As usual, I don't have a clue. Chalk it up to nothing more than mainstream media support for a crazy belief system that is based on fantasy over fact.