Former Federal Reserve Gov. Lawrence Lindsey
warned on CNBC this week that the Federal Reserve risks destabilizing the economy with the slowness of its move to raise interest rates, and he's got an ally in Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital.
The Fed's federal funds rate target has stood at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent for more than six years, and economists agree the Fed is highly unlikely to raise rates before September.
"Lindsey is speaking out again, and this time he is pointing to what he sees as a painfully obvious problem: that the Fed is creating new bubbles that no one seems willing to confront or even acknowledge," Schiff
writes in a commentary.
The
S&P 500 index has tripled in the past six years, and bond yields have declined during that period.
"The party really got going years ago and has been raging since September 2011, the last time [stocks] corrected more than 10 percent," Schiff explains. "The party has long since passed into the realm of late night delirium."
Meanwhile, Robert Auerbach, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, notes that while the Fed's massive easing program has elevated the country's monetary base to a whopping $4.08 trillion, $2.6 trillion of the total sits in excess bank reserves.
And that's a problem, he says.
"The $2.6 trillion is the monetary time bomb that they [the Fed] cannot burst into the economy rapidly without causing inflation and severe financial problems," Auerbach
writes on The Huffington Post. "If the Yellen Fed raises interest rates, they must pay the banks more money to hold on to their $2.6 trillion."
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last month that the Fed will likely start raising interest rates later this year, and then continue at a very gradual pace.
"The correct policy for the Fed is to slowly reduce interest paid to banks on their excess reserves and carefully raise the federal funds rate" if economic growth matches the IMF estimate of 2.5 percent this year, Auerbach says.
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