... why listen to the nattering nabobs of negativity out in the blogosphere with their endless litany of facts and details when we have the pronouncements of the Oracle in Washington herself to base our judgement on?
It's official, folks: You don't have to worry about a financial crisis ever again! I mean, your children might, but you are in the clear!
How do I know this? Why, the Emperess of the Economy herself, the venerable Janet Yellen, chair of the High and Mighty Federal Reserve Board of Governors has dribbled this gem of wisdom from the heights of Mount Olympus onto our lowly heads:
"Will I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? No, probably that would be going too far. But I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will."
Thus spake Yellethustra.
So now with that out of the way, it's time to party like it's 1999! You know, the height of the dotcom bubble when everyone and their pet monkey was raking in the IPO dough and newly-minted NASDAQ millionaires were lighting their cigars with hundred dollar bills. And we all remember how well that party ended, don't we?
Well, this time it'll be different. I mean, this is Old Yellen we're talking about! If we can't trust her, who can we trust?
This exciting pronouncement from the Mistress of the Markets follows last week's announcement of the results from the Fed's latest "stress tests" of the banking sector. Each year since 2009, the Fed has subjected the ledgers of the nation's largest bank holding companies to supervised testing to see if they could remain capitalized in the event of a financial crisis. This year, for the first year ever, all 34 holding companies received a clean bill of health. They survived even the worst scenario that the Fed could throw at them!
The happy news is not merely a morale booster for the markets; it confers important real-world rewards on the banking sector. Specifically, for the first time since the stress testing began, all of the banks under review have been granted free rein to buy back stock or pay dividends to shareholders. JPMorgan took advantage of the opportunity to initiate a $19.4 billion stock buyback, its largest since the 2008 crisis, and Citibank followed suit with a $15.6 billion buyback (its largest ever) and a doubling of its quarterly dividends. The immediate result: banking stocks are up across the board.
You see? Yellen is right! The banks' future is so bright, they gotta wear shades! And you know what they say: What's good for Wall Street is good for Main Street! (Except when it isn't, but why get hung up on those pesky details?)
Oh, sure, there are the naysayers. People like Lance Roberts who point out the slew of faulty assumptions that the Fed uses in their phony stress tests to make sure the banks come out of the ordeal smelling like roses:
But why listen to the nattering nabobs of negativity out in the blogosphere with their endless litany of facts and details when we have the pronouncements of the Oracle in Washington herself to base our judgement on?
Oh, sure, even some of the banksters will tell you that the Fed's stress test LARPing is laughable nonsense. The Bank for International Settlements (aka the banksters in the capstone of the pyramid) just warned that a new recession could arrive "with a vengence" if the overheating emerging markets meltdown in Lehman-like fashion. But pfffffff. What do they know about banking, anyway?
And yes, over half of Americans are now paying their entire paycheque on expenses every month with absolutely no room for savings, but that's only a problem because they haven't heard Yellen's good news yet! There will be no crash, so there's nothing to save for! Just keep on keepin' on, everybody!
I guess some of those conspiracy theorists out there will be calling this Yellen's Dewey Moment and smugly predicting that people will be mocking this pronouncement as one of the stupidest financial predictions a Fed chair has ever made. They'll probably craft some convoluted tale about how the BIS is being set up as the wise steward of the global economy that repeatedly warned about the next big crisis before it hit. They'll warn that the BIS is going to act out its own version of the Bush at Ground Zero moment, parading on the rubble of the ravaged economy to more effectively steer the public into their pre-planned new world financial order. They'll point to the fact that the last financial crisis led inevitably to calls for a New World Order from the newly-minted G20, which promptly formed a "Financial Stability Board" under the umbrella of the BIS that has quietly written the international regulatory framework that will govern the next big crisis behind the scenes.
...But that's conspiracy theorists for you. Always connecting dots and adding context to events. You know what I always say: "Just get your damn vaccine!" Err...I mean: "Just listen to Yellen!"
I mean, really? What could go wrong?
Happy investing!