BUFFALO, March 18, 2015 - Janet Yellen told the markets what they wanted to hear today and the indexes rocketed out of negative territory to finish up over 1 %. As usual, speculation abounds on precisely what was in the minds of investors.
Journalists tend to overstate the causal importance of breaking news when the market makes big moves. Often, those moves were predicted months in advance by serious traders and what happened that day had little to do with what the market did. Not true for the Fed's announcements. They do move the markets immediately.
What most people don't know, or at least don't acknowledge, is that the Federal Reserve really runs the entire economy. When the Fed inflates the supply of money and credit, indexes go up, growth occurs and the economy "improves." When it deflates the supply of money and credit, indexes go down, contraction occurs and the economy "slows."
That's really the whole story of the American economy. Think about that for a moment.
It doesn't matter who is president, which party controls Congress or what any of those people do or don't do. Yes, regulations and tax rates have some effect on the economy. Liberals might say more regulation is a good thing, conservatives might say it is bad.
But taxes and regulations haven't really had much effect at all in the past 40 years. Before that, when taxes were at 90%, they mattered, but not when the top rate fluctuates between 35% and 39%. Do the math. It's not that significant.
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