Off The Cuff: Should The Central Banks Just Buy Everything?

In this week's Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and Mish Shedlock discuss:

• Should The Central Banks Just Buy Everything?
  • Is that the plan? What would happen?
• Turning Japanese
  • Japan is leading the way by monetizing all its assets
• Putting The Fed On Trial
  • Chris fantasizes about holding up the mirror of truth to power
• The Next Interest Rate Move
  • Up or down?

This week Chris and Mish get riled up about the latest tone-deaf comments from Fed officials decrying the unintended consequences of their policies. And all the while, they and their central banking brethren seem increasing chained to their current path of buying more and more assets that central banks have no business holding. At this point, should they just go "all in" and just buy everything?

Mish: Yellen is moaning well actually central banks in general we can’t lift this heavy, heavy burden alone. We need inflation help from government. That's what they are saying, Chris. Openly. Meanwhile, I don’t know if you caught this, but the Swiss central bank has been buying shares of Facebook like mad. They now own $129 billion worth of equities, not all Facebook, but they are the eighth largest owner of Facebook shares now. They own more shares than Zuckerman. And guess what? Analysts see no problems with this. A bank research analyst recently said it makes sense for central banks to buy this — and even increase their shares! 

Chris Martenson:  Well, you know, I think if we're going to go down that slippery slope, then there's no reason that the central banks shouldn’t just press the crank a few times over and just buy everything in the world.