Hamilton Mobley

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Do the Math

Yesterday, June 8th, the Nasdaq hit an all time closing high of 9,924.74 and the USA was documented to be in a recession.[1][2]

According to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research,

“The committee has determined that a peak in monthly economic activity occurred in the U.S. economy in February 2020. The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in June 2009 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 128 months, the longest in the history of U.S. business cycles dating back to 1854. 

The previous record was held by the business expansion that lasted for 120 months from March 1991 to March 2001. The committee also determined that a peak in quarterly economic activity occurred in 2019Q4. Note that the monthly peak (February 2020) occurred in a different quarter (2020Q1) than the quarterly peak.”[3]

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, explained how multiplication made this possible during an May 17th, 2020 interview with the TV show 60 Minutes,

PELLEY: Fair to say you simply flooded the system with money?

POWELL: Yes. We did. That's another way to think about it. We did.

PELLEY: Where does it come from? Do you just print it?

POWELL: We print it digitally. So as a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally. And we do that by buying Treasury Bills or bonds for other government guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the money supply. We also print actual currency and we distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks.”[4]

September 2019 was when the Fed started “Not QE,”[5] and the month before the, “peak in quarterly economic activity.” That is when they began to digitally print money and buy anything not nailed down.

[1]https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/D61818E2-A935-11EA-BBCD-B35FD9287B62

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/08/872336272/its-official-scorekeepers-say-u-s-economy-is-in-a-recession

[3] https://www.nber.org/cycles/june2020.pdf

[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/full-transcript-fed-chair-jerome-powell-60-minutes-interview-economic-recovery-from-coronavirus-pandemic/#app

[5] https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/not-qe