VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX)

[77steel]

If the Fed is unable to raise rates from zero, it will also be have no ability to cut them to fight the next recession. So the next time an economic downturn occurs (one may already be underway), the Fed will have to immediately launch the next round of QE. When QE4 proves just as ineffective as the last three rounds to create real economic growth, the Fed may have to consider the radical ideas now being contemplated by the Bank of Japan.

So this is the endgame of QE: Exploding debt, financial distortion, prolonged stagnation, recurring recession, and the eventual government takeover of industry and the economy. This appears to be the preferred alternative of politicians and bankers who simply refuse to let the free markets function the way they are supposed to.

If interest rates were never manipulated by central banks and QE had never been invented, the markets could have purged themselves years ago of the speculative bubbles and mal-investments. Sure we could have had a deeper recession, but it also could have been much shorter, and it could have been followed by a far more robust and sustainable recovery.

Instead Washington has joined Tokyo on the road to Leningrad.

Zh