the spigots somewhat. alison kosik is it joining me. this is what investors have been worried about because the market has been drunk. trying to figure out what the fed is going to do. try $3.8 million and the programs began in november 2008 and losing $775,000 and the whole point in this stimulus was the economy. move more money into the economy. why is interest rate so small with qe 1. qe 3 is insane. how did they come to this decision on how much? you have the fed testing the waters into how much they thought that the economy needed to get it sort of moving again and the latest was this $85 billion a month that is pouring into the market.
he s also got a history of deregulation from the late 1990s, which liberals in the senate very much oppose. we broke a story today that he s gone back since he left the white house to work, to do consulting for citigroup and other financial firms, so his connections to wall street and this idea of a revolving door between washington and wall street could cause him problems if obama decides to offer him the job. yellin, not a lot know about her, she has been in the number two position, qe 3, quantitative easing has been happening. right. big supporter of that. is she the safe bet? well, depends how you see it. she seems a safe bet within the fed. if you worry about inflation, she is not a safe bet. she has been very supportive of the fed pumping money into the financial system. but i think on wall street she is seeing it as safe bet.
one way or the other. what s driving this? nothing about what we re seeing should surprise us. one simple reason. the rules of the road have changed. bear in mind we have got qe3. until this qui sis, we never had qe1. qe is unknown. it s not surprising. everything uncertainty, unknown, new rules, even the fed admits it s experimental. tapering. i mean, these are all different concepts. so it is not surprising in this environment that when something is like bernanke speaking or when you have gold moving that investors are just moving with an element of herd mentality and with an element of uncertainty. exacerbate this? of course. new rules of the road, high frequency trading. everything is faster, more detailed, more pronounced. it is as if the markets are in
robots, right, in the investment world, but we are not, and this volatility is just mind-numbing. it used to be 50 points was a big move, and now we ve had 100 points one way or the other. what s driving this? nothing we ve seen should surprise us for one simple reason. the rules of the road have changed. bear in mind we ve got qe-3. until this crisis we never had qe-1. qe was unknown. so it s not surprising. everything uncertainty, unknown, new rules. even the fed admits it s experimental. tapering. these are all different concepts. so it is not surprising in this environment that when something like bernanke speaking or when you have gold moving that investors are just moving with an element of mentality and an element of uncertainty. new rules of the road, high
there s a nice segway. you are a pro. you have done this before. a couple times. markets are open after the holiday. the dow future is up more than 100 points. s&p, nasdaq pointing higher. investors want to know how you are feeling. they may wind down the bond buying program. the qe3 is pushing home prices higher. they are looking for clue toss figure out how the markets perform without the fed. home prices have been on the rise. economists expect a big jump in home price numbers. a read on consumer confidence. later, how much you are making and how much you are spending. a study found 20% of americans plan to cut back on saving as a result of the payroll tax hike that kicked in at the beginning of this year. nearly 80% say they will cut back on spending. they expect the average family to spend 720 bucks less this