Charles Potter, KWPC, interviews Dr. Edmond Seifried, Lafayette College in this video. Dr. Seifried predicts that interest rates will increase to 3 or 3.5 by the year's end, commodity prices will peak soon, and fundamentals favor a recession in 2009.
For those in the FED challenge, Dr. Seifried mentions that Richard Fischer, Dallas Fed, has voted against Ben Bernanke every time when the FOMC wanted to lower interest rates. A link to an interview with the Dallas President is here. According to what Seifried calls the "Fischer Effect" a depreciating dollar gives foreign suppliers little incentive to keeping supplying oil to US since the buying power of the dollar is weakened.
I disagree. The last I looked trade was voluntary and the US has a very stable government. When you think about, there's only a couple of things a foreign supplier can do with a US dollar. They can either spend the dollar on US goods or buy US capital. Either option will appreciate the dollar. Even if the US dollar is sold to another country, the other country has the same two options. The dollar will return either as an export or a credit in our capital account. Dr. Seifried is a nationally known speaker and is heads and heels above me. I wondered if the Fischer Effect was meant to be a play on words after Irving Fischer. After all, an increase in the expected rate of inflation will increase nominal interest rates.
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