On Markets, Manipulation, Regulation, and Nationalization
…Brothers in 1980. At the risk of sounding like someone from the Tinfoil Hat crowd, there are also persistent rumors of the Federal Reserve buying up stock shares. This has been attributed to the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (commonly called the Plunge Protection Team.) The Fed is also very quiet about what it calls Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO). And of course the same net effect has been accomplished indirectly on a grand scale through massive infusions of credit, via the Quantitative Easing monetization mechanism. (This is where money is created ex nihilo as the government buys its own debt.) Another threat to free markets and investor freedom of choice is a legislated nationalization of our IRA and 401(k) accounts. The estimated $14 trillion in those accounts are the choice fruit that some in government have been eyeing for many years. If enacted, a nationalization scheme will likely…