Line 'Em Up

 The news is out. Again.

The Federal Reserve is optimistic. Again. One wonders in their next incarnation if this heady group of central bankers can come back as chameleons, just is their nature. The latest is the end of the year is back on the table for what most likely would be a 25 basis point hike for these brave souls.

Since all the pundits and scaremongers including a certain nation's president turned out so far to be wrong about the Brexit fallout and the U.S. stock market has been artificially pushed to artificial new high records, higher interest rates is back in the air. This group over its tenure has sent more messages than an old time Western Union office.

But as usual in the vernacular of this group there's always a big if in here. If the economy is on more stable footing than when they met in June this could set up a September rate hike. There is, as is usual for these clutch-at-any-straw bureaucrats, much nonsense in here. The June job numbers and a hint of inflation have rendered these nervous Nellies nervous. One governor was recently quoted as saying, "We are basically at full employment. I think the underlying fundamentals remain very sold for the U.S. economy."

That's brings up a couple of questions. First, if after all this massive global money printing this is the best we can get in jobs. The second is the choice of the phrase "remain very solid" when just a short time earlier they looked fairly putrid. One guesses to the Fed aberrations, like Jacks and Queens, never come in pairs.

We think the Fed is so far behind in the count given the global ZIRP and NIRP nonsense, at least three or four bubbles afloat depending on how much one want to contest the point, one should be positioning oneself for the unexpected. The world is drowning is debt. Nearly a decade of monetary madness has only piled up more debt. Much of that will never be repaid. Overt beggar-thy-neighbor tactics proved fruitless, consumers, at least for now, got he message: they're on their own, and central bankers now have about as much credibility as Joe Biden when it comes to plagiarism.

If you like ducks in a row, now might be your time.