The Federal Open Market Committee concluded its monthly two-day meeting today with no surprises. They announced, as had been widely expected, that the policy of quantitative easing (QE) would begin to be tapered later this month. The monthly purchases of $120 billion of assets – which has been used to pump countless trillions of dollars into the bankrupt international banking system over recent years – would be reduced by a total of $15 billion: $10 billion in Treasury purchases, and $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities. That same reduction will continue for eight months, until the QE falls to zero.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told the press today that interest rates would be kept right where they are – 0% — for now, although many financial analysts think that rates will have to rise in early 2022.
The globally exploding hyperinflation finally drove the Fed to start applying the brakes, after having lied for months that the inflation was only “transitory.” But it’s anybody’s guess how long it will be before the bankers hit the panic button and demand that the Fed return to fortified QE, so that they don’t go bankrupt. The last time tapering was tried was in January 2014; it lasted all of nine months, until October 2014, when “the uncertainty over its timing and pace sent financial markets in the U.S. and across the globe into disarray. This phenomenon was dubbed as a `taper tantrum,’” as the economic website “The Balance” put it.
