The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Well, it's April Fool's Day today and there certainly were a lot of fools out on Wall Street buying all the nonsense about the better than expected Non-Farm Payroll numbers

Many of those fools were also fooled into thinking that these supposedly good jobs numbers puts a June rate hike back on the table

In fact, these April Fools were out in force in March when several Fed officials were talking about the possibility of April being a live meeting, and they bought it; Janet Yellen potentially set them straight a few days ago, but then again they hear some numbers that they think are better than expected, and they think, "Aha! The Fed is about to raise rates."

When are they going to wake up and realize that none of these numbers matter - it doesn't matter what they are, better than expected, worse than expected, the Fed can't raise rates

If the Fed could raise rates, they would have already done it.

Yes, they did raise rates in December, they didn't want to raise rates, they did it anyway, and look what happened

Maybe you can think of that rate hike as a trial balloon, but it was the Hindenburg of trial balloons, it blew up, and there's no way the Fed wants to launch another one

The first quarter came to an end yesterday and the U.S. stock market actually managed to gain

It was up about 1%, but the year started off as the worse year in the history of the stock market

Back in February, U.S. stocks had the weakest beginning of the year in the history of the stock market - going all the way through the great depression

That happened because the Fed raised rates

Do you think they want to take that chance again?

Why did the market recover?  Because people then believed that the Fed was not going to be raising rates, in fact, the weakness in the market is one of the reasons they believe that

So the market going down helped the Fed to change its tune, enabling the market to go back up

Now they're not going to take another chance to have to save it again

Next time it goes down, it keeps on falling

Beneath the surface, there was a lot of carnage in the market - there were a lot of stocks that got taken out and shot

Some big hedge funds had horrible results in the first quarter

Hedge funds were on the wrong side of so many macro trades this quarter

For example, the U.S. dollar had its worse quarter in over 5 years

You remember, that was one of the most crowded trades out there at the end of last year

Everybody with a hedge fund was long the dollar and short the euro, short the yen, short the aussie, short the Canadian, you name it they were short

Some of these guys were short the Chinese yuan - the yuan had a pretty good quarter - the strongest quarter in 2 years

Everybody who was long the dollar and short another currency got killed in the first quarter

The only people who lost more money than the ones shorting were the people shorting gold

* All the talk last week in the financial media was the fact that several Federal Reserve officials had given speeches somehow putting April back on the table as a live FOMC meeting, where the Fed might raise rates

* In fact, even earlier this week, even yesterday, an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco commented that the Fed should continue with rate hikes because the economy is strong and the data is on target

* I did not buy those comments for one second - my last podcast was titled, "Fed Bankers Bark But Won't Bite", and my commentary was titled, "Two Down and Two to Go" meaning that the Fed had already dispensed with two of the 4 rate hikes telegraphed for 2016 and they would take the other 2 rate hikes away

* So, as everybody else was anticipating rate hikes, I was saying, not only are they not going to raise them in April, they are not going to raise them at all in 2016

* What happened today? Janet Yellen gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York, one of the most dovish speeches, if not the most dovish she has ever given

* As a result of the speech, the price of gold was up about $20 on the day; we closed above $1240

* In fact a couple of days ago, we had gotten nearly down to $1200

* That shows you the strength of this bull market in gold, despite the talk of a rate hike in April, and despite the rally in the dollar, gold held its position above $1200

* To me, that's very bullish, the question when will all the bears throw in the towel?

* Goldman Sachs is still looking for gold to hit $1000 - $900

* They're still looking for a strong dollar and a bunch of rate hikes

* Although Goldman Sachs is not as bearish on gold as Harry Dent

* Harry Dent called for $700 gold when I debated him on Friday's Alex Jones show

* That was a good debate, and you can check it out on my YouTube channel

* The dollar was down across the board today

* The dollar index barely held on to the 95 handle, it closed at 95.15, off not quite a full percentage point on the day

* Aussie dollar very strong on the day, up 1.4%

* New Zealand dollar was the big winner on the day; that currency was up a full 2 percentage points on the day against the U.S. dollar

* The Dow Jones liked the dovish news coming from the Fed; up just under 100 points

* One of the reasons it wasn't up more is because of the financials in the Dow weighing it down

* The NASDAQ was up 79.8 - that's a 1.7% increase

* The NASDAQ was standing still compared to the gold stocks - the GDX up 5.77%

* The GDXJ, the juniors, were up even more - about 6.3% today

* That's where the action was and I think it will continue to be, based on Janet Yellen's Dovish remarks

* I still don't think the conventional wisdom appreciates the extent of these dovish remarks

* Let me go over her remarks; she started with a pretty upbeat assessment on the economy

* She said the labor market is looking good, consumer spending is looking good, the housing recovery continues - she went over all these positives

* She did list some minor negatives: Manufacturing and Net Exports, but she blamed all that on the strong dollar

* She did also mention that capital spending and business investment was lackluster, noting in particular weakness in layoffs in the energy sector

* But overall she was still upbeat on the economy

* In fact, she admitted that the Fed's assessment of economic growth, inflation, and unemployment were exactly the same on December 2015, when they raised rates, and in the March meeting,

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All the talk last week in the financial media was the fact that several Federal Reserve officials had given speeches somehow putting April back on the table as a live FOMC meeting, where the Fed might raise rates

In fact, even earlier this week, even yesterday, an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco commented that the Fed should continue with rate hikes because the economy is strong and the data is on target

I did not buy those comments for one second - my last podcast was titled, "Fed Bankers Bark But Won't Bite", and my commentary was titled, "Two Down and Two to Go" meaning that the Fed had already dispensed with two of the 4 rate hikes telegraphed for 2016 and they would take the other 2 rate hikes away

So, as everybody else was anticipating rate hikes, I was saying, not only are they not going to raise them in April, they are not going to raise them at all in 2016

What happened today? Janet Yellen gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York, one of the most dovish speeches, if not the most dovish she has ever given

As a result of the speech, the price of gold was up about $20 on the day; we closed above $1240

In fact a couple of days ago, we had gotten nearly down to $1200

That shows you the strength of this bull market in gold, despite the talk of a rate hike in April, and despite the rally in the dollar, gold held its position above $1200

To me, that's very bullish, the question when will all the bears throw in the towel?

Goldman Sachs is still looking for gold to hit $1000 - $900

They're still looking for a strong dollar and a bunch of rate hikes

Although Goldman Sachs is not as bearish on gold as Harry Dent

Harry Dent called for $700 gold when I debated him on Friday's Alex Jones show

That was a good debate, and you can check it out on my YouTube channel

The dollar was down across the board today

The dollar index barely held on to the 95 handle, it closed at 95.15, off not quite a full percentage point on the day

Aussie dollar very strong on the day, up 1.4%

New Zealand dollar was the big winner on the day; that currency was up a full 2 percentage points on the day against the U.S. dollar

The Dow Jones liked the dovish news coming from the Fed; up just under 100 points

One of the reasons it wasn't up more is because of the financials in the Dow weighing it down

The NASDAQ was up 79.8 - that's a 1.7% increase

The NASDAQ was standing still compared to the gold stocks - the GDX up 5.77%

The GDXJ, the juniors, were up even more - about 6.3% today

That's where the action was and I think it will continue to be, based on Janet Yellen's Dovish remarks

I still don't think the conventional wisdom appreciates the extent of these dovish remarks

Let me go over her remarks; she started with a pretty upbeat assessment on the economy

She said the labor market is looking good, consumer spending is looking good, the housing recovery continues - she went over all these positives

She did list some minor negatives: Manufacturing and Net Exports, but she blamed all that on the strong dollar

She did also mention that capital spending and business investment was lackluster, noting in particular weakness in layoffs in the energy sector

But overall she was still upbeat on the economy

In fact, she admitted that the Fed's assessment of economic growth, inflation, and unemployment were exactly the same on December 2015, when they raised rates, and in the March meeting, where they didn't raise rates

She said the Fed's outlook on the economy had not changed at all

If it hasn't changed at all, why didn't they raise rates again?

They were telegraphing 4 rate hikes, and if all their assumptions about the economy had stayed the same, they why didn't we get the rate hike

She actually mentioned that in the Q&A

There weren't a lot of questions; there were two people allowed to ask questions - two economists

Yellen did mention that financial conditions were we...

* The markets are closed on Good Friday, the markets are closed, but I did want to take time to record this podcast

* Some people were wondering why I didn't do a podcast on Wednesday, the day we had a big drop in the price of gold

* Believe me, I love doing podcasts, when the price of gold goes down, because I know a lot of people who are interested in gold want to know what my thoughts are on a day that it happens to go down

* As it turns out, I did have an interview on CNBC Fast Money, and my comments are available on that interview, posted on my YouTube channel

* Gold was down about $30 on that day and declined further yesterday

* Silver was down as well

* Gold is still holding above $1200 and gold is still positive on the year, not so for the U.S. Stock Market, which slipped back into negative territory this week

* Not only was gold weaker but the dollar was considerably stronger, and commodities in general, like crude oil, copper - also went down

* So what was the catalyst?

* You might say maybe it was because gold failed to rally on the news of the terrorist attack in Belgium

* News of this kind often triggers a knee-jerk reaction to buy gold, but the rally really wasn't that big, and when a market doesn't rally on good news, it generally means it is over bought, or  it's ready to go down

* To me, however, that was a non-event, as far as gold is concerned

* I don't buy gold because of geopolitical instability - that has nothing to do with my strategy

* The real reason to buy gold has to do with inflation, and the central banks creating it, artificially low interest rates, negative interest rates and Quantitative Easing

* It has nothing to do with terrorism, except to the extent that terrorist attacks lead to more government spending that is not supported by taxes which means more money printing, more inflation and bigger deficits

* In the long run, it is good for gold, but in the short run, it is just a bunch of noise, but traders can certainly jump on these events as a reason to buy or sell and read things into a lack of movement, assuming there is a fundamental reason in the gold market, when there's not

* The more significant factors that hurt gold were comments by several Federal Reserve officials, to the extent that April is now considered a "live" meeting, meaning that they still might raise interest rates

* These comments are coming less than 2 weeks after the official March meeting, where the Fed could have raised interest rates, but didn't

* Not only did they not raise interest rates, they went out of their way to diminish the markets' expectations of future rate hikes

* So that after the March meeting, people who thought the Fed was going to raise rates 3 more times, revised expectations to at most 2, but a lot of people are starting to expect no interest rate hikes at all

* It was a very dovish press conference following the release of their statement

* So now, a week later some of the same guys on the FOMC saying, "We might raise rates in April"

* If you're thinking about raising rates in April, why were you so dovish last week?

* And if you are going to raise them in April, why not raise them in March

* None of this makes any sense, especially looking at the economic released since the Fed decided not to raise rates in March, and in general, it's been weaker expected

* So if the Fed is being given weaker than expected economic news, after they said they wouldn't raise rates, why would they now be raising the spectre of a rate hike coming up next month

* Is this some kind of trial balloon?

* I think the Fed is losing even more credibility when they're so schizophrenic: t...

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The markets are closed on Good Friday, the markets are closed, but I did want to take time to record this podcast

Some people were wondering why I didn't do a podcast on Wednesday, the day we had a big drop in the price of gold

Believe me, I love doing podcasts, when the price of gold goes down, because I know a lot of people who are interested in gold want to know what my thoughts are on a day that it happens to go down

As it turns out, I did have an interview on CNBC Fast Money, and my comments are available on that interview, posted on my YouTube channel

Gold was down about $30 on that day and declined further yesterday

Silver was down as well

Gold is still holding above $1200 and gold is still positive on the year, not so for the U.S. Stock Market, which slipped back into negative territory this week

Not only was gold weaker but the dollar was considerably stronger, and commodities in general, like crude oil, copper - also went down

So what was the catalyst?

You might say maybe it was because gold failed to rally on the news of the terrorist attack in Belgium

News of this kind often triggers a knee-jerk reaction to buy gold, but the rally really wasn't that big, and when a market doesn't rally on good news, it generally means it is over bought, or  it's ready to go down

To me, however, that was a non-event, as far as gold is concerned

I don't buy gold because of geopolitical instability - that has nothing to do with my strategy

The real reason to buy gold has to do with inflation, and the central banks creating it, artificially low interest rates, negative interest rates and Quantitative Easing

It has nothing to do with terrorism, except to the extent that terrorist attacks lead to more government spending that is not supported by taxes which means more money printing, more inflation and bigger deficits

In the long run, it is good for gold, but in the short run, it is just a bunch of noise, but traders can certainly jump on these events as a reason to buy or sell and read things into a lack of movement, assuming there is a fundamental reason in the gold market, when there's not

The more significant factors that hurt gold were comments by several Federal Reserve officials, to the extent that April is now considered a "live" meeting, meaning that they still might raise interest rates

These comments are coming less than 2 weeks after the official March meeting, where the Fed could have raised interest rates, but didn't

Not only did they not raise interest rates, they went out of their way to diminish the markets' expectations of future rate hikes

So that after the March meeting, people who thought the Fed was going to raise rates 3 more times, revised expectations to at most 2, but a lot of people are starting to expect no interest rate hikes at all

It was a very dovish press conference following the release of their statement

So now, a week later some of the same guys on the FOMC saying, "We might raise rates in April"

If you're thinking about raising rates in April, why were you so dovish last week?

And if you are going to raise them in April, why not raise them in March

None of this makes any sense, especially looking at the economic released since the Fed decided not to raise rates in March, and in general, it's been weaker expected

So if the Fed is being given weaker than expected economic news, after they said they wouldn't raise rates, why would they now be raising the spectre of a rate hike coming up next month

Is this some kind of trial balloon?

I think the Fed is losing even more credibility when they're so schizophrenic: they'll raise rates - they're not going to raise rates, they're going to raise rates...

They know the markets will react to everything they say, because they are so preoccupied with central bankers

We have a market of a few individuals, rather than fundamentals or valuations

Everything teeters on the words that come out of the mouths of...

* Before I get into the economic news of the past couple of days, the big event today was the terrorist attacks in Belgium and I want to offer my condolences to the people of Belgium and also on behalf of my listeners from the U.S. and all over the world

* This will probably work to the benefit of Donald Trump, who didn't waste much time in capitalizing on the event

* We do have a couple of primaries today, Arizona and Utah

* In Arizona, Trump is well in the lead - it's a winner take all state and today's news will probably solidify Trump's lead there

* The wild card will be the Utah primary where Donald Trump is in last place. Mitt Romney didn't endorse Cruz, but said a vote for Cruz is a vote against Trump.  If Cruz gets less than 50% of the votes, however, the delegates would be divided proportionately.

* Not much action in the market - Gold spiked up on the news of the Brussels attacks, and closed up just under $5

* Silver was up earlier this morning, but there's a lot of support building in the silver market

* I had noticed that there were some traders shorting silver and buying gold

* When gold gets this expensive relative to silver, I wouldn't want to bet that that trend continues

* I would say, if you like gold, just buy gold, don's short silver, because you could turn a winning trade into a losing trade

* The big action in the currency markets was in the British Pound

* The Aussie and the Canadian dollar continue to rise against the U.S. dollar

* European currencies were a little bit weaker, but the main weakness was in the British pound

* One would think, wouldn't the euro be hurt more than the pound, by the terrorist attack?

* Traders believe that the attacks will increase the refugee problem, which is at the core of Great Britain's possible exit from the European Union, and the pound is falling on that speculation

* Most of the economic data that came out yesterday and today was weaker than expected

* They were expecting a bounce in the Chicago Fed National Activities Index and instead of a +.25, we got a -.29

* They did increase the positive number from +.28 to +.41, so the February decline is actually more dramatic

* Bigger miss that came out was in Existing Home Sales; it was a 7.1% drop

* That's the biggest drop in 6 years, and the 3rd consecutive month of declines

* The problem they're pointing to is high prices

* Imagine what would happen if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates 2 more times

* If the Fed were to raise interest rates, what does that do to mortgage rates? They go up also

* When home sales are falling sharply because they're unaffordable even with record low mortgage rates, what happens to affordability when mortgage rates go up?

* How does the Fed increase interest rates when they are already not low enough to sustain the market, even at rock bottom?

* They're also pointing to lack of inventory as a culprit, but there are no buyers at these prices

* The only thing keeping these overpriced homes affordable is the artificially low interest rates, courtesy of the Fed, and the government, through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA

*  Another problem is the lack of viable jobs in this economy

* Also this morning we got the PMI Manufacturing Index - expected to improve on last month's 51, dangerously close to the borderline between expansion and contraction

* We did improve but only to 49.5, a full one point below expectations

* The one outlier of the week, was the Richmond Manufacturing Index - last month, February, was -4 and the consensus expectation was 0 for this month

* We ended up getting +22 - this was the biggest beat ever and the highest number going back to 2012

* The number is so high it looks suspicious to me - i...

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Before I get into the economic news of the past couple of days, the big event today was the terrorist attacks in Belgium and I want to offer my condolences to the people of Belgium and also on behalf of my listeners from the U.S. and all over the world

This will probably work to the benefit of Donald Trump, who didn't waste much time in capitalizing on the event

We do have a couple of primaries today, Arizona and Utah

In Arizona, Trump is well in the lead - it's a winner take all state and today's news will probably solidify Trump's lead there

The wild card will be the Utah primary where Donald Trump is in last place. Mitt Romney didn't endorse Cruz, but said a vote for Cruz is a vote against Trump.  If Cruz gets less than 50% of the votes, however, the delegates would be divided proportionately.

Not much action in the market - Gold spiked up on the news of the Brussels attacks, and closed up just under $5

Silver was up earlier this morning, but there's a lot of support building in the silver market

I had noticed that there were some traders shorting silver and buying gold

When gold gets this expensive relative to silver, I wouldn't want to bet that that trend continues

I would say, if you like gold, just buy gold, don's short silver, because you could turn a winning trade into a losing trade

The big action in the currency markets was in the British Pound

The Aussie and the Canadian dollar continue to rise against the U.S. dollar

European currencies were a little bit weaker, but the main weakness was in the British pound

One would think, wouldn't the euro be hurt more than the pound, by the terrorist attack?

Traders believe that the attacks will increase the refugee problem, which is at the core of Great Britain's possible exit from the European Union, and the pound is falling on that speculation

Most of the economic data that came out yesterday and today was weaker than expected

They were expecting a bounce in the Chicago Fed National Activities Index and instead of a +.25, we got a -.29

They did increase the positive number from +.28 to +.41, so the February decline is actually more dramatic

Bigger miss that came out was in Existing Home Sales; it was a 7.1% drop

That's the biggest drop in 6 years, and the 3rd consecutive month of declines

The problem they're pointing to is high prices

Imagine what would happen if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates 2 more times

If the Fed were to raise interest rates, what does that do to mortgage rates? They go up also

When home sales are falling sharply because they're unaffordable even with record low mortgage rates, what happens to affordability when mortgage rates go up?

How does the Fed increase interest rates when they are already not low enough to sustain the market, even at rock bottom?

They're also pointing to lack of inventory as a culprit, but there are no buyers at these prices

The only thing keeping these overpriced homes affordable is the artificially low interest rates, courtesy of the Fed, and the government, through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA

 Another problem is the lack of viable jobs in this economy

Also this morning we got the PMI Manufacturing Index - expected to improve on last month's 51, dangerously close to the borderline between expansion and contraction

We did improve but only to 49.5, a full one point below expectations

The one outlier of the week, was the Richmond Manufacturing Index - last month, February, was -4 and the consensus expectation was 0 for this month

We ended up getting +22 - this was the biggest beat ever and the highest number going back to 2012

The number is so high it looks suspicious to me - it will be interesting to see what happens to the subsequent month, or if there is a revision

All the other reports this week were weak, so one outlier does not give me reason to jump to any conclusions

One of the interesting stories of the week was the government...

* I'm recording this podcast to address the growing controversy surrounding an article I put out yesterday on the SchiffGold website, titled "BitGold’s Secret: A Taxation Time Bomb"

* Jim Turk, who happens to be a large outside shareholder of BitGold is attacking me for the article

* I have a lot of respect for James Turk, although not necessarily the way he's chosen to attack my commentary

* My critics are attacking me as a person for the article by taking content out of content or addressing straw men instead of the points I actually make

* One of the ways I'm being criticized is on BitGold's gold debit card program, where you can buy gold, they'll store it, you can access it through a credit card and you can spend your gold

* They say that this is a great concept and it's a lot better than Peter Schiff's

* They say it's a better product, less expensive and has more users

* BitGold's platform has about 800,000 users

* Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody and to those of you who have been waiting since yesterday for this podcast, you won't be disappointed

* Yesterday I did an interview with Liz Claman at Fox Business News and I did respond to the Fed's decision.  That video is up on my YouTube Channel.

*  The Fed did not raise interest rates, which didn't surprise a lot of people, but what did surprise a lot of people was the the Fed indicated, based on their Dot Plot, the consensus is that the Fed now sees two rate hikes coming in 2016

* If you recall, at the end of last year and earlier this year, the Fed was still projecting 4 rate hikes in 2016

* What I said from the very beginning is, "No chance."

* In fact I still thought it was more likely that we'd get a rate cut

* Now it's two down and two to go, because now the Fed is only pretending that they will raise rates twice this year instead of pretending that they're going to raise rates 4 times

* What's really interesting now is how the Fed is starting to lose credibility that it never should have had

* Steve Liesman asked Janet Yellen a good question: He said, what about your credibility - you said you would raise rates 4 times and now it's 2 times, and you said you were data dependent and unemployment is below 5%, creating 200,000+ jobs per year and the core CPI is up 2.3%

* He said, if you're not raising rates now, under what circumstances will you raise rates?

* Janet Yellen didn't really answer the question, but I thought she was thinking, "Don't you understand, we never intended to raise rates."

* I pointed this out from the beginning: The Federal Reserve never said that they would raise rates 4 times. They said, based on our economic forecasts, this is what we think is going to happen - BUT if we're wrong, it's not going to happen

* Janet Yellen said to Steve Liesman, "Look, these dots don't mean anything - this is what we're thinking at a moment in time, but it's not a promise."

* For some reason, everybody assumes that if the Fed thinks the economy is going to get better it will get better, in fact, if anything, since the Fed's track record is so horrific, if the Fed thinks the economy is going to get better, it's probably going to get worse, and so they are not going to raise interest rates the way they're pretending

* One of the reasons the Fed is pretending that the economy is good is because that's the official line of the Obama Administration: "The economy is good, and if you say it's not good, you're peddling fiction."

* Yellen probably wanted to say to Liesman,"Steve, we're not raising rates because the economy is lousy."

* The fact that they don't raise rates is the proof that they know that the economy is lousy, but they don't want to say it, so Janet Yellen is saying "Read between the lines"

* When I'm listening to all the coverage about the fact that the Fed didn't raise rates, the reports say,"Janet Yellen chickens out", "Janet Yellen gets cold feet"

* That's not the point.  Her feet were always cold. The Fed never intended to raise rates.

* If they were planning to do it they would have done it

* This is all part of the extend and pretend charade

* In fact, in my Fox Business News interview with Liz Claman, I was debating Andy Brenner who holds that the Fed will raise rates 2 or 3 times this year

* I said, "If the Fed was going to raise rates, they should have raised them yesterday."

* Brenner responded that the market wasn't prepared for it

* I said the Fed is not supposed to be market dependent, it is supposed to be data dependent

* The market may never be prepared to raise rates - look at what happened the last time, the market got off to the worse start in the history of the market

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Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody and to those of you who have been waiting since yesterday for this podcast, you won't be disappointed

Yesterday I did an interview with Liz Claman at Fox Business News and I did respond to the Fed's decision.  That video is up on my YouTube Channel.

 The Fed did not raise interest rates, which didn't surprise a lot of people, but what did surprise a lot of people was the the Fed indicated, based on their Dot Plot, the consensus is that the Fed now sees two rate hikes coming in 2016

If you recall, at the end of last year and earlier this year, the Fed was still projecting 4 rate hikes in 2016

What I said from the very beginning is, "No chance."

In fact I still thought it was more likely that we'd get a rate cut

Now it's two down and two to go, because now the Fed is only pretending that they will raise rates twice this year instead of pretending that they're going to raise rates 4 times

What's really interesting now is how the Fed is starting to lose credibility that it never should have had

Steve Liesman asked Janet Yellen a good question: He said, what about your credibility - you said you would raise rates 4 times and now it's 2 times, and you said you were data dependent and unemployment is below 5%, creating 200,000+ jobs per year and the core CPI is up 2.3%

He said, if you're not raising rates now, under what circumstances will you raise rates?

Janet Yellen didn't really answer the question, but I thought she was thinking, "Don't you understand, we never intended to raise rates."

I pointed this out from the beginning: The Federal Reserve never said that they would raise rates 4 times. They said, based on our economic forecasts, this is what we think is going to happen - BUT if we're wrong, it's not going to happen

Janet Yellen said to Steve Liesman, "Look, these dots don't mean anything - this is what we're thinking at a moment in time, but it's not a promise."

For some reason, everybody assumes that if the Fed thinks the economy is going to get better it will get better, in fact, if anything, since the Fed's track record is so horrific, if the Fed thinks the economy is going to get better, it's probably going to get worse, and so they are not going to raise interest rates the way they're pretending

One of the reasons the Fed is pretending that the economy is good is because that's the official line of the Obama Administration: "The economy is good, and if you say it's not good, you're peddling fiction."

Yellen probably wanted to say to Liesman,"Steve, we're not raising rates because the economy is lousy."

The fact that they don't raise rates is the proof that they know that the economy is lousy, but they don't want to say it, so Janet Yellen is saying "Read between the lines"

When I'm listening to all the coverage about the fact that the Fed didn't raise rates, the reports say,"Janet Yellen chickens out", "Janet Yellen gets cold feet"

That's not the point.  Her feet were always cold. The Fed never intended to raise rates.

If they were planning to do it they would have done it

This is all part of the extend and pretend charade

In fact, in my Fox Business News interview with Liz Claman, I was debating Andy Brenner who holds that the Fed will raise rates 2 or 3 times this year

I said, "If the Fed was going to raise rates, they should have raised them yesterday."

Brenner responded that the market wasn't prepared for it

I said the Fed is not supposed to be market dependent, it is supposed to be data dependent

The market may never be prepared to raise rates - look at what happened the last time, the market got off to the worse start in the history of the market

Smarter people realize they're not going to raise rates at all

How could they risk another rate hike given what happened the last time

Most people look at the Fed as if they were honest

If the Fed were honest, they would acknowledge how weak the economy is