Marc Faber on the Fed: "They are going to bankrupt the world"

Nobody could have a more negative view of the Federal Reserve than I.  It is run by a disastrous group of academics, who have no clue about what is happening in the real world.  They believe money-printing can create jobs.  They are going to bankrupt the world.

~ Marc Faber, Barron's Roundtable, January 13, 2014

Bernanke says QE effect, poses no risk of financial instability

We don’t think that financial stability concerns should at this point detract from the need for monetary policy accommodation which we are continuing to provide. Of all the concerns raised about bond buying by the Fed, the risk it could prompt financial instability is the only one I find personally credible. Currently, asset prices are broadly in line with historical norms. Those who have been saying for the last five years that we’re just on the brink of hyperinflation, I think I would just point them to this morning’s CPI number and suggest that inflation is not really a significant risk of this policy. The Fed is extraordinarily sensitive to risks of financial market instability. (Referring to bond purchases by the Fed), It was at least somewhat effective, and given that we were at the limits of what conventional monetary policy could do, we felt that we needed to take additional steps. I’m not yet ready to conclude that very low interest rates are going to be a permanent condition.

~ Ben Bernanke, "Bernanke Says QE Effective While Posing No Immediate Bubble Risk", Bloomberg, January 16, 2014

Nouriel Roubini: no economic recovery yet

I'll be the first to call a recovery, but I just don't see it yet, and it's getting uglier.

~ Nouriel Roubini, January 2009, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

Cicero on treason

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

~ Cicero 56 BC

Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker: "no worries"

The only thing people are worried about is that no one is worried about anything. That isn’t a real worry.

~ Adam Parker, Morgan Stanley’s market strategist, 2014 outlook report (as quoted by Michael Santoli, "Investors grow confident — or is it overconfident? — as stocks hit record highs," Yahoo!Finance, January 6, 2014)

Time magazine: "The great gold bust" (1976)

To hoarders and speculators, gold has had about as much luster as a rusty tin can.  In the 19 months since gold purchases became legal for U.S. citizens, the price has fallen more than 40% from its peak of $198 an ounce.  In three chaotic days of trading last week, gold fell $14 on the London market, reaching a 31-month low of $105.50 an ounce.  Though the price recovered to $111 by week's end, that is still a dismal figure for goldbugs, who not long ago were forecasting prices of $300 or more.

~ Time, "The Great Gold Bust," August 1976

David Geffen on Bill and Hillary Clinton

Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling.

~ David Geffen, February 21, 2007, interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times