Economic security

Why Dow 28,000 could mark that ‘blowoff top’ bears have been predicting

Last month, the Federal Reserve began snatching up short-term Treasury debtto the tune of $60 billion per month in response to the repo mess that sent a chill through Wall Street back in September.

While it might sound like another round of quantitative easing, Fed Chair Jerome Powell wanted to make it clear: It’s not. “In no sense is this QE,” he said.

Charles Hugh Smith, the author behind the “Of Two Minds” blog, isn’t buying it. In a recent post, he recounted a riddle Abraham Lincoln apparently once told: “If I should call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would it have?” — Five! — “No, only four; for my calling the tail a leg would not make it so.”