Category News

FOMC Expectations Show The Non-Taper Worked

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

The FOMC will release its October statement at 2PM today and the widely held expectation is that the Fed will stand pat and continue its $85 billion in bond purchases. Despite the overwhelming belief that the Fed would taper in its September meeting (it didn’t), the exact opposite belief is now conventional wisdom this time around. Why did everyone’s expectations about Fed policy take such a dramatic turn?

Not because the economy suddenly crashed. Equities are still rising and interest rates have fallen in the past month as the market has pushed back the timeline for the taper. The jobs report was underwhelming, but not catastrophic. Consumer confidence fell, though this wasn’t surprising. The government shutdown hurt the economy, but much of it will be made back in the upcoming quarters and we also avoided a default. The shutdown has also delayed the release of some economic data.

All in all, it has been a mediocre, slightly below average last month of economic news. But based on market expectations last time, slightly below average data would still lead the market to expect the Fed to taper. Since that’s not the case, then it’s not the data alone that has caused Fed watchers to adamantly believe that the Fed won’t taper this time. It’s because the Fed regained its credibility and realigned the market’s expectations with future Fed policy.

The Fed cannot commit to any action it will take in the future since it does not know the future state of the economy. But it can give the market a baseline of how it will react if certain economic conditions come to pass. That’s what Bernanke set out to do in June when he said that the Fed would begin tapering in the fall if the market continued to improve at a moderate pace. Over the summer, that improvement slowed, but the market didn’t adjust its expectations to take into account this slowdown. It assumed that the baseline that Bernanke laid out was a set path of action, despite his repeated admonitions not to take it that way.

In fact, this blind belief that the Fed would taper caused interest rates to rise which weakened the economy and gave further incentives to the committee to continue its bond buying. By pricing in the taper, the market helped create the economic conditions for the Fed to do just the opposite.

Through all of that, the FOMC sent a message in September: Don’t assume that the Fed won’t adjust its policy based on the underlying economic data. Finally, Fed watchers and the market are catching on. The 180-degree turn in expectations is a direct result of the Fed convincing the market that it’s data-dependent and for them to use the Fed’s forward guidance as just that, a guide not a set path. The unanimous belief that the Fed will not taper today is evidence of that policy’s success.

Why Obama’s Lie About Keeping Your Health Insurance Infuriates People

Danny Vinik 1 Comment

Over the last day, liberals have been on the defensive explaining why so many Americans are finding out their insurance plans have been discontinued. These explanations have been fundamentally correct, but they have failed to grasp why Americans are so infuriated by this. The Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein gets closest to it in a piece yesterday:

When Obama took office and made health care his top priority, he understood that one of his main tasks was to convince Americans that he had a plan that could improve the health care system for those who it wasn’t currently working well for (such as those with pre-existing conditions) while leaving it untouched for those who were satisfied.

This is exactly right. Obama sold the law on the idea that for all those who liked their coverage, nothing would change. For those that didn’t or didn’t have coverage, it would be an improvement. Sure, there would be losers, but Obama assured Americans that they could keep the insurance they had.

If he was being honest, this is what he would’ve said:

For the vast majority of Americans, the Affordable Care Act won’t disrupt your health coverage. You’ll get to keep your plan and your doctor. But there are some people for whom I can’t make that guarantee, because your current health insurance is too weak to provide adequate protection. In creating this law, we set out not just to ensure Americans have access to the most basic coverage that leaves them on the hook for huge out-of-pocket costs. We sought to make health care coverage more comprehensive and that required creating a minimum benchmark that insurers must meet.

This will only affect the individual market where around 5% of Americans purchase health insurance. Plans that existed before 2010 will be grandfathered in, but we know insurers change these plans frequently and will likely do so again. That means they will have to comply with these new standards and that will require discontinuing some plans that they currently offer. I can’t guarantee that everyone will keep their plan, but I can guarantee that your new plan will be more comprehensive and provide a greater safety net in case catastrophe strikes.

Does that sound like a speech that would garner huge support? Of course not. You know what sounds a lot better? This:

[N]o matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.

That’s what President Obama told the American Medical Association in 2009. It’s straightforward, comforting and a lie.

That’s why many Americans are furious at the administration right now. They were promised they could keep their plan and they can’t. They don’t care about “the big picture,” the more comprehensive coverage or the subsidies that may reduce their premiums. They don’t like change and they don’t like navigating the confusing health care market. Now they are forced to do both. Most importantly, they didn’t expect this to happen. They are shocked and angry.

Liberals have done a good job explaining why this change is necessary and beneficial for Americans, but they have not done a good job understanding why this lie is so infuriating. It convinced Americans to support the law and allow its passage. It gave Americans comfort that if they had coverage, nothing would change. Finding out that such a critical component of Obamacare was a lie is a startling realization, especially for a law that has gone through such a turbulent few years. Supporters need to step back and let that sink in for a second. Instead of cramming an explanation down Americans’ throats and declaring that conservatives simply aren’t engaging with the policy arguments, liberals need to understand that anger over these cancellations does not stem from partisan bickering. It comes from a promise Obama broke. The blame lays squarely at his feet.

McConnell is Ready for a Tea Party Battle

Danny Vinik 1 Comment

For a little while, it seemed as if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would swing to the right to match up with his right wing challenger, Matt Bevin. The past couple of weeks have shown otherwise. McConnell stepped forward and orchestrated the debt ceiling deal and has criticized the Tea Party’s tactics repeatedly.

Sam Youngman has the details of this burgeoning battle:

McConnell caused widespread whiplash last week when he unleashed a blistering attack on Bevin, his Republican primary challenger, just days after the Kentucky senator had signaled he was looking past Bevin to likely Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Instead, several allies of McConnell and other Senate Republicans say the senator is now planning a two-front war: one against Grimes and the other against the fundraising groups that are supporting Bevin. McConnell’s real targets are the Senate Conservatives Fund, which announced its endorsement of Bevin on Oct. 18, Heritage Action for America, Madison Project, FreedomWorks and other outside groups.

If McConnell can crush Bevin, the thinking goes, he can expose a lack of ideological consistency in the outside groups, allowing him to separate Tea Party voters from Tea Party fundraising groups.

This is shaping up to be the key race in next year’s elections. Can McConnell antagonize the Tea Party and outside groups and defeat Bevin by running a more centrist campaign? If he does so, will those Tea Partiers support him against Grimes and provide the votes to defeat her? Neither question has a clear answer. McConnell has a very difficult year ahead of him.

I’ve argued that the Republican establishment’s best way to retake the party from the radicals in it is to quietly win elections. McConnell isn’t taking that advice. He wants to make a statement here that will reverberate far beyond Kentucky. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy. If the minority leader can hold his seat, it will signal to other moderate Republicans that they can take a harder line against the Tea Party and still win elections.

McConnell is also the perfect candidate to take this risk. He’s a part of the Republican leadership, which means Tea Party disdain for him is already pretty high. He can only alienate so many more Tea Partiers by attacking them, compared to a more junior member who could incite strong opposition by doing so. In addition, Kentucky is a solid red state, meaning that he could lose some of the right-wingers and still defeat Grimes in the general election.

But the risks here are also extremely high. Bevin and Grimes are both strong candidates and will not go away easily. Outside money is going to pour into Kentucky as the primary kicks into full gear. McConnell’s attorney already accused Bevin of committing a misdemeanor last week. This is going to be a heated primary and it could easily hurt his showing in the general. How nasty will this get? Hollywood stars are already lining up to donate to Grimes, with many in the Democratic party thinking that she could have a real shot to unseat the minority leader. McConnell’s determination to send a message to his party and use Bevin’s radicalness against him only plays into their hands.

This is a vital test of the Republican establishment’s ability to tame the Tea Party by attacking them head on. If McConnell can defeat Bevin and Grimes, it will be a rallying cry for moderates to take back control of their party. But if he falters, the opposite will be true. It will be a crystal clear indication that the Tea Party is still in power and will force moderates to continue bending to their every whim. It’s not an understatement to suggest that McConnell’s campaign is a battle for control of the Republican party.