– Putting A Face To Einstein’s Definition Of Insanity (ZeroHedge, Aug 7, 2012):
If ever there was a name and a face synonymous with Einstein’s famous definition of repeating the same action and expecting a different unicorn-full world of happiness, it is Boston Fed’s Eric Rosengren. Thankfully far from consensus among the Fed heads – though worrying fanatical – the hyperinflationary head used the propaganda channel this morning to pump hope into an increasingly skeptical market. In an effort to pre-empt a possible slowing global economy, his prescription is “open-ended quantitative easing triggered on economic outcomes”. Fearful of the US merely treading water, Rosengren sounds like he admits that it’s all about the flow when he shuns pegging interest rates as a ‘trigger’ since this removes control of the Fed’s balance sheet to market forces (in other words – we need to keep printing and expanding the balance sheet no matter what rates or stocks are doing). Stunningly, the only limiting factor he sees to this open-ended print-fest is the size of the asset markets they are buying in – which he would like to see in MBS (and suggests his disappointment at the limited scope of assets available to the Fed). Just under nine minutes sums up the extremely dangerous experimental mind of an eternal optimist “if at first (or second, or third) you don’t succeed…” as he shuns the impact on (transitory) energy price rises by pointing at the lack of inflationary pressures.