No one can explain the most complex economic and monetary issues in a simpler, more homespun fashion than former governor of the Federal Reserve, Bob McTeer.

He is known for carrying around two yardsticks, one slightly longer than the other, to demonstrate to your average guy the monthly changes in employment.

Bob argues that the Fed is getting a bad rap today. Ben Bernanke?s quantitative easing was neither inflationary, nor caused the collapse of the dollar. This ?money printing effort? is not actually printing any money.

The $1.7 trillion QE1 was designed to buy mortgage backed securities to bring liquidity back to the market place. QE2 enabled the purchase of a further $600 billion in Treasury securities to prevent a double dip recession. On top of this, the Treasury piled the $700 billion TARP to recapitalize the major banks. Then came QE3. All four of these programs were wildly successful.

As a result, the Fed balance sheet has grown from a pre-crash $800 billion to $3.6 trillion. Normally this would be inflationary, but it is not this time, as all of the extra money is being tied up with excess reserves at the banks.

The proof of this is that the money supply, M2, is growing at a very modest rate, barely enough to accommodate the population growth. Without the Fed programs the monetary base would have fallen off a cliff.

The challenge going forward is for the Fed to unwind its balance sheet at the same rate that the banks start paring back excess reserve through more aggressive lending. Too slow, and the Fed risks inflation. Too fast, and it risks falling back into recession.

Although it appears that the dollar is dead in the water in the foreign exchange markets, it is in fact at the same level as it was before the financial crisis. All it has really done is given back its flight to safety bid. The dollar is really a function of our international balance of payments and global interest rate differentials.? Bob feels that the next big move in the greenback is down.

McTeer points out that the Fed has been a huge cash cow for the Treasury, and ultimately, the taxpayer. QE1 and QE2 took in $120 billion in profits over the last three years. The TARP funds paid a 5% preferred dividend and brought in tens of billions of dollars in profits from the banks (GS), (BAC), General Motors (GM), and AIG (AIG).

Bob views Obama?s $900 billion stimulus package as ?an attempt to shoot a hog with a shotgun?. The big problem is that businesses view such programs as temporary and act accordingly. Permanent changes to government policies get you more bang for the buck.

Bob, 73, was probably one of the last people in Texas to use a functioning outhouse. He grew up in rural Ranger, Georgia, the son of a truck stop operator, and his first brush with the real economy was pumping gas and picking cotton.

Somehow, he scored an economics degree from the University of Georgia, and went on to work at the Federal Reserve. He was named president of the Dallas Fed in 1991, and went on to pioneer the analysis of the impact of technology on the macro economy.

Bob is simple, but he is no lightweight. Today, he serves as a chancellor of Texas A&M University, with 100,000 students.

The industry beating performance of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Trade Alert Service has maintained its gob smacking pace from last year, picking up another 12.6% profit in the first ten trading weeks of 2014.

The Dow Average was up a feeble 1.4% during the same period, pegging my outperformance of the index at a stunning 11.2%. Since the beginning of 2013, I am up 80%, with a trailing 12-month return of 51%.? 2013 closed with a total return for followers of 67.45%.

The three-year return is now an amazing 135.1%, compared to a far more modest increase for the Dow Average during the same period of only 34%. That brings my averaged annualized return up to 41.6%. Not bad in this zero interest rate world. It?s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

This has been the profit since my groundbreaking trade mentoring service was launched in 2010. Thousands of followers now earn a full time living solely from my Trade Alerts, 95% of which have been profitable this year.

Not a day goes by without finding grateful emails thanking me for changing their lives. Stories abound of mortgages paid off, college educations financed, and aging parents supported. Quite a few use my award winning mentoring service to finally achieve financial independence and told their bosses to go jump off a bridge.

I won?t pass on the pictures they sent me. To read the plaudits yourself, please go to my testimonials page. They are all real.

The hot streak continues.

I managed to call the double top in the Treasury bond market (TLT), and picked up some easy money on the short side. Crucially, I was one of the first to catch the leadership change in the market, out of technology and health care (XLV) and into banks (XLF), (BAC), (GS) and autos (GM).

On top of this, I bought some long exposure in classic old-line deep cyclicals, like General Electric (GE) and (Delta Airlines (DAL). Finally, I ramped up my ?RISK ON? trading book by adding a new position in eBay (EBAY), jumping on Carl Icahn?s attempt to greenmail this spectacularly well run company (come on Carl, call a spade a spade!).

My ambitious macro view is allowing me to put the pedal to the metal on the risk side. I think that the final effect of one of the cruelest winters in history will be to shift economic growth from Q1 to Q2. That gives us every excuse to ignore every piece of bad data, and only focus on the good numbers.

This paves the way for a blowout Q2 US GDP number of over 4%. That is what the stock market is telling us now by going sideways or up almost every day.

It is a real ?heads, I win, tails, you lose? market. The indexes could continue with slow, grinding sideways ?time? corrections followed by sudden, frenetic pops to the upside all the way until the summer. My current strategy cashes in on this scenario, while also providing some downside protection so you can sleep at night.

My only loss so far this year was with some S&P 500 puts that I used to hedge downside exposure for my other long positions. We can?t all be perfect.

My esteemed colleague, Mad Day Trader Jim Parker, was no small part of this success. Since the market became technically and momentum driven, I have been confirming with him before sending out every Trade Alert. Together, our success rate is 100%.

What would you expect with a combined 85 years of market experience between the two of us? Followers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Don?t forget that Jim clocked an amazing 2013 of a staggering 374%. That is just for an eight-month year!

The coming year promises to deliver a harvest of new trading opportunities. The big driver will be a global synchronized recovery that promises to drive markets into the stratosphere in 2014.

The Trade Alerts should be coming hot and heavy. Please join me on the gravy train. You will never get a better chance than this to make money for your personal account.

Global Trading Dispatch, my highly innovative and successful trade-mentoring program, earned a net return for readers of 40.17% in 2011, 14.87% in 2012, and 67.45% in 2013.

The service includes my Trade Alert Service and my daily newsletter, the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader. You also get a real-time trading portfolio, an enormous trading idea database, and live biweekly strategy webinars. Upgrade to?Mad Hedge Fund Trader PRO?and you will also receive Jim Parker?s?Mad Day Trader?service.

To subscribe, please go to my website at www.madhedgefundtrader.com, find the ?Global Trading Dispatch? box on the right, and click on the blue ?SUBSCRIBE NOW? button.

The Gunslinger on Your Behalf

Hey! You there, staring at this monitor. This is your PC talking to you. No, not you over there standing in the background. I?m talking to the guy sitting in front of me poking at my keys. Ouch! That one hurt!

So you thought no one was watching, did you? Let me straighten you out. About a month ago you clicked on a certain website, and I installed myself as a cookie on your computer, which is an innocuous little text file that you can?t see.

Since then, I have been tracking your every move, recording websites you clicked on, the pages you visited, and the stuff you ordered. I then used this handy little algorithm to build a profile of exactly who you are. I now know you better than your own mother. In fact, I know you better than you know yourself.

For example, I am aware that you make more than $250,000 a year, live in a posh zip code in San Francisco, belong to a fancy country club, and drive a Mercedes. You donate to Republican political causes, send your kids to a prestigious private school, and bill it all to an American Express Platinum Card. Did I leave anything out?

Because I know every detail of your life, down to your inside leg measurement, I am able to harness the power of this machine to more precisely service your every need. That includes directing advertising to you, which you have a high probability of clicking on.

The more you click on my ads, the higher prices I can realize for those ads. The ad campaigns you now see are unique to your own personal computer because they are tied to your IP address. My program, called ?behavioral targeting? is the next ?big thing? in online advertising. It?s all part of the brave new world.

I see you have been shopping for a new car. Check out the new Hyundai at http://www.hyundaiusa.com/ , which offers the same quality as your existing ride, at half the price. Your clicks this morning suggest you?re taking your ?significant other? out to dinner tonight. Might I suggest Gary Danko?s on Bay Street at http://www.garydanko.com/site/bio.html ? The rack of lamb is to die for there.

Your visits to http://www.travelocity.com/ and http://www.expedia.com/ tell me you?re planning a vacation. I bet you didn?t know you can find incredible deals in Las Vegas at http://www.visitlasvegas.com/vegas/index.jsp . Thinking about buying a condo there? They?ll even pay for the trip if you promise to check one out while you?re there.

Since we?re chatting here mano a mano, I noticed that that last pair of jeans you ordered from http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp had a 42-inch waist, up from the 40?s in your last order. Better lay off those cheeseburgers. Pretty soon, they?ll be calling you ?tubby? or ?fatso?. Better visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/Index.aspx soon, or the legs on that chair might buckle out from under you.

Worried about privacy? Privacy, shmivacy. There hasn?t been privacy in this country since the first social security number was handed out in 1936. And don?t expect any relief from Congress. I doubt half those dummies even know how to turn on their own PC?s.

Don?t even think about trying to delete me. I?m a ?flash cookie?, an insidious little piece of code that reinstalls every time you try that. Think of me as a toenail fungus. Once you catch me, I?m almost impossible to get rid of.

I hope you don?t mind, but I?ve been passing your personal details around to some of my buddies at other websites. That?s why when you clicked on http://www.nfl.com/ you got deluged with product offers from your local team, the San Francisco 49ers. I?ve got friends at Google, Facebook, MySpace, and pretty much everywhere. Can I help it if I?m a popular guy? I bet the view from those 50 yard seats is great, isn?t it?

I noticed that your spending habits don?t exactly match with the income you reported on your last tax return. Do you think the IRS would like to know about that? I bet you didn?t know the agency offers a 10% reward for turning in tax cheats.

How did you like those triple X DVD?s you bought last week? Whoa! Hot, hot, hot! I hope your employer never finds out about those. It might not go down too well at your next performance review.

I thought it was lovely that you bought your spouse a two carat, yellow, vvs1, round cut diamond ring for $26,000 from http://www.bluenile.com/ for your 30^th wedding anniversary. But who is Lolita, the Argentine firecracker, in Miami Beach? Does the old wifey know you sent her a $2,000 pair of diamond stud earrings? What?s it worth to you for me to keep mum on this? Maybe you should take a quick peak at http://www.divorcelawfirms.com/ and see what you?re in for?

Naw, I?m just pulling your leg. This is all just between friends, right? Think of it as a doctor/patient relationship. I?ll tell you what. See that leaderboard ad at the top of the page? Just click on that and we?ll call it even. Oooh that felt good! Click it again. Oh, baby! Not too many times. You?ll trigger my anti click fraud program.

Now you see that wide skyscraper add over on the right? Click on that too. Oh baby! Click it again! And there?s a little button ad at the bottom of the page. No, not that one. A little lower. What was that little cutie?s name in Miami again? Aaaaah.