Monday, December 24, 2018

Everyone remain calm, says Steve Mnuchin

No doubt he means to soothe rather than rattle with this move, but I'm not sure how effective it is in achieving that aim:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary called top U.S. bankers on Sunday amid an ongoing rout on Wall Street and made plans to convene a group of officials known as the “Plunge Protection Team.”
U.S. stocks have fallen sharply in recent weeks on concerns over slowing economic growth, with the S&P 500 index .SPX on pace for its biggest percentage decline in December since the Great Depression.
“Today I convened individual calls with the CEOs of the nation’s six largest banks,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Twitter shortly before financial markets were due to open in Asia. 
U.S. equity index futures dropped late on Sunday as electronic trading resumed to kick off a holiday-shortened week. In early trading, the benchmark S&P 500’s e-mini futures contract ESv1 was off by about a quarter of a percent. 
The Treasury said in a statement that Mnuchin talked with the chief executives of Bank of America (BAC.N), Citi (C.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), JP Morgan Chase (JPM.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N).
“The CEOs confirmed that they have ample liquidity available for lending,” the Treasury said.
Mnuchin “also confirmed that they have not experienced any clearance or margin issues and that the markets continue to function properly,” the Treasury said. 
Mnuchin’s calls to the bankers came amid a partial government shutdown that began on Saturday following an impasse in Congress over Trump’s demand for more funds for a wall on the border with Mexico. Financing for about a quarter of federal government programs expired at midnight on Friday and the shutdown could continue to Jan. 3. 
The Treasury said Mnuchin will convene a call on Monday with the president’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which includes Washington’s main stewards of the U.S. financial system and is sometimes referred to as the “Plunge Protection Team.”
The group, which was also convened in 2009 during the latter stage of the financial crisis, includes officials from the Federal Reserve as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wall Street is also closely following reports that Trump has privately discussed the possibility of firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Mnuchin said on Saturday Trump told him he had “never suggested firing” Powell. 
We're now getting to the juncture that everybody but the throne-sniffers saw coming from the outset of the VSG phenomenon: Can he be gotten to by grownups on a consistent basis, so that the idiots don't have his ear at all? Can we keep the protectionists and the wall-obsessors out of the room?



 

6 comments:

  1. What a Republican mess again. Thanks again for nothing!

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  2. Every Pub admin since TR has had a recession in 1st term.

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  3. "Michael Bloomberg wrote that his major concerns include the potential for an economic nosedive triggered by what he described as Trump’s devil-may-care style of leadership. “With other countries pleading for sanity and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization warning of severe consequences if trade sanctions get out of hand, talk of a looming recession is growing,” he said. “Yet the president seems determined to make matters worse — and to hell with the economic consequences.”

    Bloomberg pointed to last week’s stock market plunge as another sign that “Trump’s recklessly emotional and senselessly chaotic approach to the job” has a real impact. “At the halfway mark of this terrible presidency, one has to wonder how much more the country can take,” he added.

    The only solution, Bloomberg said, was for the GOP to stand up to Trump."

    https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/bloomberg-rips-apos-senselessly-chaotic-112439677.html

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  4. Indeed. We shall see if there's sufficient spine within that party to do so, or if they are all afraid of being called "Fredocons" by Kurt Schlichter.

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  5. Thomas Friedman in the NYT has called on the party to reign him in or even force him to resign if he won't come around.

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  6. I won't call his Christmas eve tweet childish because that implies innocence and purity, but that 'all alone' whine was meant for his base and those preachers who lay hands on him. They need to be stood up to too, though that gets real ugly fast. I hated when Hillie verbalized it, but they can indeed appear deplorable.

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