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<\/a><\/p>\nMichael Snyder | Economic Collapse<\/p>\n
The Federal Reserve has decided not to come to the rescue this time.\u00a0 All of the economic numbers tell us that the economy is slowing down, and on Wednesday Fed Chair Jerome Powell even admitted that economic conditions are\u00a0\u201csoftening\u201d<\/a>, but the Federal Reserve raised interest rates anyway.\u00a0 As one top economist put it, raising rates as we head into an economic downturn is\u00a0\u201ceconomic malpractice\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 They know that higher rates will slow down the economy even more, but it isn\u2019t as if the Fed was divided on this move.\u00a0 In fact, it was a unanimous vote to raise rates.\u00a0 They clearly have an agenda, and that agenda is definitely not about helping the American people.<\/p>\n Early on Wednesday, Wall Street seemed to believe that the Federal Reserve would do the right thing, and the Dow was up nearly 400 points.\u00a0 But then the announcement came, and the market began sinking dramatically.<\/p>\n The Dow Jones Industrial Average\u00a0lost 720 points in just two hours<\/a>, and the Dow ended the day down a total of 351 points.\u00a0 This is the lowest that the Dow has been all year,\u00a060 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the stocks listed on the S&P 500 are in bear market territory, and at this point approximately four trillion dollars of stock market wealth has been wiped out.<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t seen anything like this since the last financial crisis.\u00a0 This is officially the worst quarter for the stock market since the fourth quarter of 2008, and it is the worst December that Wall Street has experienced\u00a0since 1931<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is insanity to raise interest rates when stocks are already crashing, but the Federal Reserve did it anyway.<\/p>\n They knew what kind of reaction this would cause on Wall Street and in other global markets, but that didn\u2019t stop them.\u00a0 The financial world is in utter turmoil, and this move by the Fed has definitely added fuel to the fire.<\/p>\n Could it be possible that they actually want a stock market crash?<\/p>\n Some are suggesting that the reason why the vote was unanimous was because they wanted to send a \u201cstrong signal\u201d to President Trump.\u00a0 He has been extremely critical of the Federal Reserve in recent weeks, and this could be a way for the Fed to show Trump who is really in charge.<\/p>\n They are calling this \u201cthe Trump economy\u201d, but that is simply not true.\u00a0 And when Barack Obama was in the White House, it wasn\u2019t \u201cthe Obama economy\u201d either.\u00a0 Ultimately, it is the Federal Reserve that is running the economy, and they fiercely guard their independence and their authority.<\/p>\n President Trump knows that the only way that he is going to win in 2020 is if the economy is doing well, and he also understands that higher interest rates will slow the economy down.<\/p>\n So essentially the Federal Reserve has a tremendous amount of political power in their hands.<\/p>\n During the Obama era, the Fed pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them there for many years.<\/p>\n But now the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates\u00a0seven times<\/strong>\u00a0since Donald Trump took office, and four of those rate hikes have been under current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.<\/p>\n Needless to say, it certainly doesn\u2019t take a lot of imagination to figure out how Donald Trump is feeling about Powell at this moment.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreekFire23\/status\/1075479430104080384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1075479430104080384&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheeconomiccollapseblog.com%2Farchives%2Fis-the-federal-reserve-actually-trying-to-cause-a-stock-market-crash<\/p>\n Meanwhile, we continue to get more indications that the U.S. economy is heading for difficult times.\u00a0 Just consider the following news\u00a0about FedEx<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n FedEx shares are plunging after what Morgan Stanley called a \u201cjarring\u201d cut to its annual forecasts, suggesting global growth is slowing far more than most expect \u2013 in fact, the bank hinted at the possibility of a\u00a0\u201csevere recession\u201d<\/strong>unfolding \u2013 and prompting expectations of an \u201cuber-dovish hike\u201d by the Fed.<\/p>\n The global logistics bellwether slashed its outlook\u00a0just three months after raising the view,\u00a0<\/strong>reflecting an unexpected and abrupt change in the company\u2019s view of the global economy amid rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Not only were the cuts were deeper than the Street expected according to Morgan Stanley analyst\u00a0Ravi Shanker, but everyone is pointing to the following comment from the press release: \u201cGlobal trade has slowed in recent months and leading indicators point to ongoing deceleration in global trade near-term.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n To see the term \u201csevere recession\u201d used in such a context is more than just a little bit alarming.<\/p>\n The last time the U.S. economy went through a recession, millions of Americans lost their jobs and we saw a wave of mortgage defaults unlike anything we had ever seen before in modern American history.<\/p>\n Are we about to go through something similar?<\/p>\n