Like John Belushi from The Blues Brothers, Fed Chair Jerome Powell is saying that the markets lackluster response in terms of bond yields to his “hawkish” announcement yesterday “isn’t his fault.”

(Bloomberg) Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell appears unperturbed by the fact that longer-term bond yields remain low even as officials lay the ground work for tighter policy and inflation is ticking higher.

While the drop in longer-term rates may be viewed by some as indicative of where so-called terminal rates for U.S. policy might ultimately lie, Powell on Wednesday emphasized the impact of ultra-low yields in places like Japan and Germany in helping to keep them anchored. 

“A lot of things go into the long rates and the place I would start is just look at global sovereign yields around the world,” Powell said at a news conference following the Fed’s final scheduled policy meeting for the year, which saw officials ramp up the pace of stimulus withdrawal and boost predictions for rate hikes in 2022. The Fed Chair noted that rates on Japanese and German government bonds are “so much lower” than those on Treasuries and that with currency hedging taken into account American debt provides investors with a higher yield. “I’m not troubled by where the long bond is,” he said. 

This stands as something of a contrast to the view expressed back in 2005 by one of Powell’s predecessors. Back then, Fed chief Alan Greenspan described a decline in long-term bond yields even in the face of six policy rate increases as a “conundrum.” 

Or it could be that no one REALLY believes that Central Banks will ever cut interest rates, despite surging inflation.

The US Treasury 10-year yield dropped 7 basis points overnight and remains just south of 1.50%. The Eurozone remains below 1% (with Germany at -0.358% and France at -0.009% at the 10-year mark). Japan is at 0.039%. This is what Powell means by low global rates keeping US long-term rates down.

The 10-year Treasury term premium (measured before Powell’s head fake on raising rates) has returned to pre-Biden levels.

Meanwhile, global equities futures are up across the board (well, except for Mexico).

Gold rose on Powell’s “Tomorrow” talk while the US Dollar fell.

The Fed could have raised their target rate if they were REALLY interested in cooling inflation. The Taylor Rule remains at 14.94% while The Fed is stalled at 0.25%. Even if you don’t like the Taylor Rule, it still highlights how ridiculous Fed Stimulypto is.

Well, we do have a government-propelled economic recovery, but at a cost of declining REAL wages thanks to the highest inflation rate in 40 years.