The Federal Reserve pretends to have eyes only for main street and the fulfillment of its statutory mandate with respect to maximum employment, stable prices and moderate interest rates. In fact, its only client is Wall Street and it does tricks of the monetary variety—wittingly or otherwise—exclusively for its financial pleasure.
Unfortunately, the Fed’s monetary harlotry comes at immense cost to main street America. It crushes savers and retirees; causes the C-suites of corporate America to strip-mine their cash flows and balance sheets in order to fund stock buybacks, M&A deals and other Wall Street pleasing financial engineering gambits; and results in a virulent inflation of financial assets that confers unspeakable windfalls to the tippy top of the wealth ladder.