With each passing day of declines, the "Ben to the Rescue" cries are growing stronger. I mean, a full week has gone by now since Wall Street's ease-addicts originally got stiffed and came up empty handed from the Fed minutes, and nothing has been done yet? Then comes the March jobs data disaster Friday, followed by more selling Monday and still no sight of the Bernanke helicopter, swooping in to save the rall..er I mean, save the day.
But fear not ease-addicts, it's coming. Even opponents of the Fed's reflationary efforts, like Marc Faber, editor & publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, are certain of it, saying Bernanke would look foolish if he just caved in now.
"I wouldn't want to be in his shoes but if I were in his shoes I would wait for the markets to sell-off to get some sympathy for implementing QE3," Faber says. "It's politically not very easy to implement QE3 now."
At least if you want to maintain even a shred of indepedence it isn't easy. But Faber says this Fed Chairman is too concerned with investor expectations, and too cavelier about damaging the dollar.
"If you're the head of a central bank, the number-one priority is to safeguard the integrity of money," Faber argues, refering to the currency's unique and critcal role as "the unit of account, the store of value and the means of exchange."
As much as the Fed's dual mandate of promoting full employment and stable prices has received its share of debate, Faber thinks Bernanke's performance on the money issue is worse.
"I dont think Bernanke has fulfilled these obligations," he states.
As for higher rates, Faber says the market will do the Fed's work long before there's any official tightening in late 2014.
"It could happen this year or next year," he says, but "one day rates will be much higher than they are at the present."
