Twist and Turn, Twisting in the Wind, Twist and Shout, A New Twist, Twisted Ben

The headlines are flying and likely to fly more tomorrow on how my dearest friend Ben has announced his and the Feds (three dissented) to sell bonds with short term maturities and replace them with bonds with six and 30 years. In addition, mortgage backed securities they own now will be replaced with new ones to support the mortgage market. Plan is to lower long term rates below their already record lows. Every one and their brother recognizes that rates are not the problem and this is unlikely to do much, but Ben is not one to sit on his hands and the political environment is not there at the moment for more QE. Either the market did not like what is being dubbed "Operation Twist" or they did not like talk about "significant downside risks." Either way, they did a cliff dive. On the other side, they may just be waking up to the fact that there is little economically to be real happy about at the moment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/asia-stocks-commodities-drop-on-fed-comments-bank-downgrades-won-sinks.html

I mean after all, poverty is up in the U.S., the middle class is making less than it did 10 years ago and effectively what it did 20 years ago and all the money in this country is increasingly consolidated in the very wealthy. Indeed, the collective worth in the Forbes American top 400 went up by 12% over the past year. Gates is at the top of the list followed by Warren Buffet. But here is something a bit odd, the person Forbes reported as the richest person in the world just a few months back was not on the list of the top 400 in America. I admit I did not read the entire list but back in March Carlos Slim Helu had $74 billion and I went down the Forbes 400 list to the $5 billion level and he did not appear. Either he has had a horrific six months or Forbes does not consider him an American. Last I checked America included a lot of countries and not just the U.S. Mr. Slim Helu is from Mexico, which is part of America just as much as the U.S. , Canada or a host of other countries. So maybe the list needs to be called the 400 richest people in the U.S., which I believe is what it represents. Just a thought.

Disclosures: None