In 2019 the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in an effort to stimulate the economy. But it didn't need shoring up. The Fed described it as an "insurance cut."
“Members who voted for the policy action sought to better position the overall stance of policy to help counter the effects on the outlook of weak global growth and trade policy uncertainty, insure against any further downside risks from those sources, and promote a faster return of inflation” to the 2% target, according to minutes of the July 30-31 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, released Wednesday in Washington. - Bloomberg
The Fed has a dual mandate of employment and price stability. Employment has been below 5% for years and inflation has been hovering just at or below the Fed's 2% target for even longer. The S&P 500 has returned 15% annually for the last decade. The business sector is recording record profits. Why did we need any insurance?
Because the stock market went down. A little bit.
Because the Federal Reserve knows that they have reconditioned the market. It is no longer acceptable to achieve full employment and price stability. They must keep the stock market afloat, fight future recessions both near and abroad. They do not seek to simply tame the business cycle, they seek to break the business cycle.
Therein lies the problem.
Without recessions there can be no business failure. Without failure there can be no learning. Just a zombie economy, with zombie companies with zombie employees.
To deprive your citizens of their right to fail, is to deprive them of their right to succeed. Without failure there can be no success.
The corporate world we live in is designed to not reduce but eliminate risk on every level. Especially on a personal level. So that we can say that we "did the right thing" and "covered all our bases." To attribute an apparent failure or set back to larger forces beyond our control. That is why we hire consultants, commission "independent" (lol) third party studies, and hire enough risk and compliance to field a small army. The corporate world lives and breathes in a world of offloaded responsibility.
I believe its broader than just the corporate world.
As a society we have substituted the authentic for the synthetic. We have traded in pain for numbness. Instead of freedom we chose security. Without failure, there can be no success.
Our political leaders don't offer us solutions, courage, or leadership, they offer us numbness, adrenaline and dependency.
Hollywood has substituted character development, personal complexity, and story telling for black and white good versus evil and virtue signaling.
The medical community has pumped us with enough drugs to obscure pain - telling us that it is the 5th vital sign, not our biological protector.
Our social lives have traded the depth of relationships for the status, marketing, and self promotion. The price is fulfillment in exchange for loneliness.
This is the environment we live in, and like any environment by merely being in it we are susceptible to its effects. To its effects on our soul.
It will not be this way forever, every sleeping giant is forced awake. The falsehoods of the death of risk can never be entirely buried, its cost never completely hidden. When we awake, it will never be more painful. It will never be more humbling. But our hearts will never be fuller.
To deprive your citizens of their right to fail, is to deprive them of their right to succeed. Without failure there can be no success.
The corporate world we live in is designed to not reduce but eliminate risk on every level. Especially on a personal level. So that we can say that we "did the right thing" and "covered all our bases." To attribute an apparent failure or set back to larger forces beyond our control. That is why we hire consultants, commission "independent" (lol) third party studies, and hire enough risk and compliance to field a small army. The corporate world lives and breathes in a world of offloaded responsibility.
I believe its broader than just the corporate world.
As a society we have substituted the authentic for the synthetic. We have traded in pain for numbness. Instead of freedom we chose security. Without failure, there can be no success.
Our political leaders don't offer us solutions, courage, or leadership, they offer us numbness, adrenaline and dependency.
Hollywood has substituted character development, personal complexity, and story telling for black and white good versus evil and virtue signaling.
The medical community has pumped us with enough drugs to obscure pain - telling us that it is the 5th vital sign, not our biological protector.
Our social lives have traded the depth of relationships for the status, marketing, and self promotion. The price is fulfillment in exchange for loneliness.
This is the environment we live in, and like any environment by merely being in it we are susceptible to its effects. To its effects on our soul.
It will not be this way forever, every sleeping giant is forced awake. The falsehoods of the death of risk can never be entirely buried, its cost never completely hidden. When we awake, it will never be more painful. It will never be more humbling. But our hearts will never be fuller.
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