<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 3:53 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>The Fed (and other central banks) have other tools beyond interest rates.  </i></blockquote><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">But interest rates are its most powerful tool and its's nearly gone; in 1982 it was 19.5%, but today it's just 1.5% so not much room for a rate cut. Here is a chart of what the rate has been over the years and as you can see its already freakishly low.</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"><a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffm-static.cnbc.com%2Fawsmedia%2Fchart%2F2019%2F6%2F30%2Fexport-0xXhZ.1564494597901.png%3F&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2019%2F07%2F31%2Fheres-how-the-fed-sets-interest-rates-and-how-that-rate-has-changed-over-the-last-four-decades.html&tbnid=2Ubi1t8m9jUTgM&vet=12ahUKEwjMitnW2_fnAhVBS60KHTOhAFwQMygFegUIARDmAQ..i&docid=COyGNOsfOH1cuM&w=1200&h=800&q=plot%20of%20fed%20interest%20rates&ved=2ahUKEwjMitnW2_fnAhVBS60KHTOhAFwQMygFegUIARDmAQ">Federal interest rates</a><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> <i>A coordinated surprise central bank intervention will certainly goose markets short term. </i></blockquote><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">I don't think it would do much even short term because Fed interaction has already been factored into stock prices. The only thing that would surprise the market would be if the Fed did nothing, and that would not be a surprise of the good sort. </font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></div>
</div></div>