Still bailing

It’s going to be fascinating to learn how long the great game of Let’s Pretend can continue:

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, easing investor concern that interest rates may rise earlier than previously forecast, said the world’s biggest economy will need Fed stimulus for “some time.”

Yellen said today the Fed hasn’t done enough to combat unemployment even after holding interest rates near zero for more than five years and pumping up its balance sheet to $4.23 trillion with bond purchases.

“This extraordinary commitment is still needed and will be for some time, and I believe that view is widely shared by my fellow policy makers,” Yellen said at a community development conference in Chicago. “The scars from the Great Recession remain, and reaching our goals will take time.”

The amusing thing is that if you take the GDP numbers seriously, the Great Recession was actually a very minor one. Of course, it’s all fiction at this point, and poorly written fiction at that.

Remember, the Fed always talks about the general economy, but all it actually cares about is keeping the giant banks from collapsing.