Yes, artificially inflating assets does give a bigger push to the economy until they deflate. Likewise, directing it here may make inflation look tame, however, just like inflation it leads to some very nasty results including inevitable inflation, unsustainable debt, and mispricing of just about everything on spending due to credit generated from mispriced assets. The Federal Reserve should move to a communist country if they want to continue what they are doing. It doesn't belong in a market driven capitalist economy.

Sadly, apparently no one in the market knows or cares. That is probably due to the Federal Reserve directing everyone into stocks and their constant orchestration to protect it from the most minor of plunges, which only leads to giant cyclical plunges even they can't avoid. People as usual will wake up to the truth when their 401Ks drop 50% or more again. After all, most people have divorced themselves from managing their most important assets and call it intelligent. Of course, brokers agree with them since they are the ones who get rich off their assets regardless of how much they lose.

The founders of the US would be shocked and irate. Money and the right to produce and distribute it belongs to the legislature. To give it to the Fed to manipulate sectors of the economy to enrich those who know and produce money regardless of what the Congress does is exactly the reasons, including the accusation the central bank purposely impoverishes sectors of the economy as well, that the central bank was abolished by the US government twice before. This is not a new issue. Central bank misuses, power grabs, and Constitutional issues have long been known and fought about in the US and the central bank has long been known to have connections with politicians and has been accused of doing everything from collapsing the economy to rigging the election to save its hide in the past.

Read the fist hundred years of the Republic and besides the Civil War, central bank issues stand about the second greatest issue and threat to the government well before communism.

Great graphs. It is good to see savings increase and total consumption expenses drop, however, as we can see income is not budging and household wealth building is based almost entirely on the bubble of a plunge protection stock market, a synthetic housing market socialized by the government under the Fannie Freddie system, a central bank that is so heavily invested in its own bonds it sells due to artificially pushing rates down that they end up buying huge sums of it, and gambling from zirpish rates given to financial institutions that is infecting every corner of our economic system.

Combined it would make any believer in capitalism think we line in a communist state.

This is yet one more example of the terrible results of a overly loose monetary policy gone awry and a signal that things are going to get very, very messy when the bubble burst.

It takes some time for a Fed induced market to capitulate, yet capitalism always eventually forces the market into facing the truth or destroys the uncapitalistic lie like it did to Russia and so many others. The sooner the bad behavior by the government and Federal Reserve gets proven to be destructive and the socialist enrichment machine for insiders gets vanquished and is removed the better we will be off and then and only then will merry Christmas' and good strong economic years appear once again.

Yay another market sector artificially manipulated by the government and lots and lots of pork. Market is a term used loosely because healthcare is increasingly divorcing its way from resembling anything capitalistic like a market.

So right, and just like the oil collapse in Texas before, in no time it will collapse the real estate market as well except it will be spread all over the country. Of course, there seems to be some effort to goose the market one last time which is terrible because feeding the market at the end of a business cycle is the final straw that leaves the economy in a giant lurch with only ugly ways out of the next downturn.

Likewise the collapse will spread to overpriced clean energy as well crashing other houses of cards even though they are more viable than the government fraud that was Solyndra. The simple fact is oil isn't the only overblown market which created mal-investment and is set to collapse. In reality just about everyone knows TBTF banks which have gambled others money in speculative deals, and an artificially stimulated stock market are two more overblown markets which will come tumbling down likely in a horrible manner the next time a severe downturn comes. Unfortunately, TBTF banks have gotten even bigger and will end up damaging the market inordinately more than ever before forcing the taxpayer to bail them out which tends to make the problem worse just like the last downturn.

If you think poor people cost a lot to support, trust me, the TBTF bankers will make their demand look like nothing. Nothing will satisfy them next time besides you being destitute (the middle class), 50 poorer (wealthy), or enslaved by taxes levied to keep them afloat which they will sell to politicians as saving you because you can't live with TBTF leechlike bankers and executives that take no accountability for terrible behavior.

First, the Federal Reserve wants low yields because it now holds tons of US low yield bonds and will have a hard time if yield rise because the US abilities to pay down debt and issue debt at current levels will reach epic strains at 5-7% rates. Likewise, their main constituents big banks, are more dependent than ever on low to no rate free money through zirp policies and getting the Federal Reserve to use QE money to bail them out of all sorts of hidden bad debt.

In the end, the author is right, rates are astronomically ridiculous, as is the late business cycle stimulus being thrown at the economy. It leaves the economy with no safety when the cycle ends and creates absurd bubbles that more than likely collapse epically like the last downturn. Oil is already headed that way. Watch out for more to follow. When people yell for Yellen it will be too late. All the parachutes to safety have already been used.

The meltdown always starts with a sector exhibiting market weakness which gets pushed to its limit and then collapses further. This time that seems to be oil and oil drilling companies, not to say junk bonds won't collapse like they always do. In no time, some oil related debt will surely reach junk level and default.