The Good Fed/Bad Fed Routine

The following chart shows the real home equity loans at all commercial banks per civilian employed (December 2013 dollars).


Click to enlarge.

A linear trend failure *and* an exponential trend failure? All in the same chart? I think I just died and went to trend failure heaven!

October 27, 2005
Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust

U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals," such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households.

Wikipedia: Good cop/bad cop

The good cop/bad cop routine is a common dramatic technique in cinema and television, where the bad cop often goes beyond the boundary of legal behavior. A common variant to subvert expectations is to seemingly introduce the 'bad cop' first, only to reveal that he's actually the 'good cop' despite his harshness and that the real 'bad cop' is even worse.

If credit is the lifeblood of this economy, then we just need to work through this "soft patch" and all will be well again. Right?

Investopedia: Soft Patch

This term gained popularity when former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan used it in his review of the overall U.S. economy. Central banks often cut interest rates in an attempt to spur the economy through the soft patch.

Two quick questions and I'll let you go.

1. Where the @#$% is the good Fed?
2. Is it normal for a soft patch to last more than 5 years?

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart