The economic surprises keep piling up on the negative side of the ledger as the Federal Reserve persists in tightening policy or at least pretending that it is. If a rate changes in the wilderness can the market hear it? Outside of the stock market’s rise to record highs, it’s difficult to find evidence that the Fed’s extraordinary policies of the past decade have been very effective.

And I’m not sure quantitative easing can be blamed for pushing asset valuations to incredible heights, once again. I’m also not sure exactly what the Fed is trying to accomplish and I don’t think it really does either. All evidence points to the nonsensical idea that interest rates need to be raised so the Fed will have room to cut them later. Unfortunately, that is as logical as monetary policy gets these days.

I may not know what’s going on and Fed Chair