Ben Bernanke Pulls a Yogi Berra

In the early years of the last decade, I had the pleasant experience of attending a dinner for a major client at which we had Yogi Berra as a guest speaker. As a lifelong baseball fan — and how 'bout those Red Sox — I looked forward to hearing Yogi regale us with legendary tales about the great Yankee teams.

He started his delivery by unequivocally stating, “I am not good at giving talks, so just go ahead and ask me some questions.” He entertained us with a slew of his famous non-sequiturs in fine fashion.

I thought of Yogi and that dinner when the Federal Reserve released its statement on the economy yesterday afternoon. (By the way, do you notice a facial similarity between Ben and Yogi? ) Having read Fed releases for the last thirty years, I am hard pressed to ever remember a statement as ambiguous as this  put out yesterday:

The Committee is prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation as the outlook for the labor market or inflation changes.

In so many words, Bernanke seemingly indicates he knows asset markets are in a bubble but the economy is not responding to or benefiting from his massive liquidity injections via quantitative easing. So what is the most powerful central banker in the world to do?

Pull a Yogi Berra, meaning when he comes to that proverbial fork in the road, which is now right in front of him, he plans on taking it.

Thanks for very little Ben.

As we all sit here in the back seat of our American economy, just how confident do you feel in our driver?

I guess all I might say is, keep your seat belt strapped and as always . . . navigate accordingly.

Larry Doyle

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I have no business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.