Friday, August 24, 2012

Ben Bernanke Will Channel Evel Knievel As He Jumps This Fiscal Cliff

Evel Knievel was an American daredevil, who attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980. In 1974, he failed in his attempt to jump across Snake River Canyon in a rocket. He survived, and died in 2007 of pulmonary disease. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be about to try to outdo Knievel with an even greater stunt: attempting to leap over the fiscal cliff at the beginning of next year.

I think there’s a chance that he might announce during his August 31 speech at Jackson Hole that the Fed will launch an open-ended QE3 program with the hope of turbocharging the economy so that it can leap over the cliff. San Francisco Fed President John Williams, a voting member of the FOMC, was the first to advocate this stunt in an interview reported in the 7/23 FT.

He floated the idea again in an interview reported in the 8/10 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. When he was asked whether QE3 should be saved to cushion the fall off the cliff early next year, if necessary, he responded: "We want to position the economy to be strong in advance of that. If you are really worried about running out of ammunition, you want to act more aggressively, more quickly and better prepare yourself for that eventuality."

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