Pushing on a String … Again?

In the wake of the latest batch of “double-dip” chatter, the market’s attention is shifting back to the Federal Reserve. Investors are asking a simple question:

“What, if anything, will the Fed do if the economy craps out again?”

Before I give my answer to that question, I’m inclined to ask a different one:

“Who cares?”

These guys have already done just about everything they can … pulled every trick out of their hats … and bailed out and backstopped virtually the entire financial system!

While all of that free money helped boost ASSET prices, it hasn’t done a heck of a lot for the “real” economy. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. Housing continues to slump. Investment is anemic and confidence is lacking.

In other words, the Fed is pushing on a string — and more pushing isn’t going to do a darn thing for those of us living in the real world! But since the market is focusing on the Fed again, let me address the question at hand …

Is QE2 Coming?

The latest economic data clearly suggests that my double-dip scenario is becoming much more likely.

Just this week, for instance, we learned that retail sales dropped 0.5 percent in June after falling 1.1 percent in May. That was worse than economists expected and the first back-to-back decline since early 2009.

What about housing?

Well, if you believe purchase mortgage applications are a good leading indicator of demand — and I do — then you should be worried. A Mortgage Bankers Association index that tracks loan activity just fell to 163.30. That’s the lowest level going all the way back to December 1996!

Finally, as Claus noted on Wednesday, a key leading index is pointing decisively lower. The inescapable conclusion? Despite the happy talk on Wall Street and the recent market rally, the economy appears to be rolling over.

The Fed has cut interest rates to the bone, and there’s not much chance they’ll go up in the foreseeable future.

The last time the economy fell into the drink, the Fed reacted by slashing interest rates to a range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent. The federal funds rate has remained there ever since, and there’s no indication it’ll rise anytime soon.

But the Fed did much more than lower the funds rate …

It also embarked on a policy of “Quantitative Easing” (QE). That’s a fancy way of saying it printed money out of thin air and bought more than a trillion dollars of securities: Mortgage-backed bonds, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, long-term Treasuries, and so forth.

The idea was to lower mortgage rates and bond yields, thereby spurring home purchases, refinances, and corporate investment.

Did it work?

Well, mortgage rates definitely tanked. At around 4.5 percent, in fact, 30-year fixed mortgages are the cheapest they’ve been in the last century! But as I noted above, housing activity is now plumbing depths we haven’t seen since Bill Clinton’s first term in office. Bond yields did drop initially, but not much. And they subsequently rose again.

Bottom line: I’d argue the Fed didn’t accomplish much. Even some Fed officials doubt the rampant money printing and QE policy worked all that well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

That hasn’t stopped some of the Keynesian acolytes from begging for even more free money from Helicopter Ben Bernanke though. Take New York Times columnist Paul Krugman …

He lambasted the “Feckless Fed” this week, begging it to do “all it can to stop it” — the “it” being deflation. Buy government bonds? Buy private bonds? Pledge to keep short-term rates low, essentially, forever? Krugman is all for it!

So far, the Fed itself appears split. The Journal this week puts Fed governor Kevin Warsh, Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker, and Kansas City Fed president Thomas Hoenig in the “No more funny money” camp.

But Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren and New York Fed president Bill Dudley appear more open to the idea. Bernanke is reportedly somewhere in the middle, preferring to just wait, watch, and let the market sort itself out.

If So, Should We Care?

But again, my answer is that whether the Fed goes hog wild printing money or not, it won’t matter much to the real economy. It’ll probably boost gold prices. It’ll likely hammer the dollar. And it could temporarily boost stocks, even in the face of lousy fundamentals.

No matter what the Fed does right now, it won’t help the “real” economy.

But all the kings horses, all the kings men, and even a further ballooning of the Fed’s balance sheet — currently around $2.3 trillion vs. $900 billion before the credit crisis burst onto the scene — won’t matter to most Americans.

Private companies aren’t firing workers and hoarding cash because interest rates are too high. They’re doing so because there’s too much factory and labor capacity.

Consumers aren’t cutting back on spending because loans are too expensive. They’re doing so because they just went on the wildest debt-fueled spending binge in U.S. history, and they’re trying to repair their balance sheets.

Look, we’ve had twin bubbles in stocks and housing over the past decade and a half. They both popped. The fallout will be with us for a long, long time.

I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if a long Japan-like period of economic stagnation lies ahead. In fact, I’d invest accordingly — by paring back stock positions into rallies, and using inverse ETFs and put options to target downside profits.

And when the Fed chatter reaches a fever pitch, I have some advice: Turn off the TV and go play with your kids or grandkids. It just doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Until next time,

Mike