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Hopes for a year-end rally crashed-and-burned when the Labor Department indicated Nov. 6 that the nation added 271,000 non-farm payroll jobs, dropping the unemployment rate to 5.0%. When Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen announced Sept. 17 she’d hold the federal funds rate at zero-to-a-quarter-percent, Wall Street breathed a sign of relief, climbing nearly 1,000 points. Getting the so-called good news about jobs and the record low unemployment rate signaled to economists that Yelllen may indeed hike rates as promised at the Fed’s December 15-16 Open Market Committee Meeting. Yellen’s been caught between a rock-and-a-hard-place knowing when to pull the trigger on a rate hike. She’s been under enormous pressure to begin hiking rates destined to give the nation’s biggest banks even bigger profits at a time of record economic success.

Yellen’s extra-cautious about hiking the federal funds rate after the nation’s third-quarter Gross Domestic Product came in 1.5 percent, far lower than the second quarter result of 3.9 percent. Since ending the third round of Fed bond buying know as “quantitative easing” or QE3 Oct. 29, 2014, there’s been renewed concerns about the Fed’s liquidity and capital requirements for banks that once ran out of cash in 2008. Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, working with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Senate and House Banking Committees, urged President George W. Bush to sign the first to two $700 billion bailouts to save major U.S. banks and General Motors and Chrysler from bankruptcy. Less than 10 years before, former President Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law Nov. 12, 1999, letting big banks to get back into the brokerage business.

After the Stock market crash of 1929 and Great Depression, Congress enacted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt June 16, 1933 to prevent the kind of risky investing by the nation’s biggest banks, putting depositors money at risk. For 66-years Glass-Steagall prevented the nation’s biggest banks from gambling away depositors’ cash, until former President Bill Clinton signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley into law Nov. 12, 1999, letting banks to once again get back into the stock market business. Despite the two bailouts under the Troubled Assets Relief Program [TARP] totally $1.4 trillion, it’s estimated that the Federal Reserve Board actually printed and distributed some $16 trillion to keep the economy from crashing. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke approved the cash distribution and slashed the federal funds rate to zero Dec. 16, 2008

Yellen’s expected decision to hike the federal funds rate a quarter-percent presents problems for Wall Street hoping to keep the bull market going since the Dow Jones Industrials Average bottomed out March 9, 2009 at $6507. Nearly three times the size, economists fear a prolonged Wall Street sell off could dry up corporate liquidity, cause lay-offs and lead to another stubborn recession. With the Q3 GDP running at only 1.5%, Yellen knows a rate hike could grind GDP growth to a halt. When you consider economic contraction in Europe and Asia, it’s questionable whether or not the U.S. economy can avoid contagion or a global economic slowdown. New York Fed President William Dudley hinted toward a December rate hike. “It is quite possible that the conditions the Committee [FOMC] has established to begin to normalize monetary policy could soon be satisfied,” said Dudley.

Yellen’s been warned several times by International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Legarde to hold off on any rate hike in 2015. Pressure from more hawkish Fed governors want Yellen to hike rates, almost to prove globally the U.S. economy is in good shape. Yellen’s decision to hike rates can’t be based on pressure from impatient Fed governors. When the Great Recession hit in 2008, former Fed Chairman Alan Greespan warned of another “Financial Panic” that potentially takes 10-years-or-more to recover. GOP presidential candidates have blamed Obama, and to a lesser extent Yellen, for creating slow economic growth. If there’s any truth to Greenspan’s assessment, it could take years for the U.S. economy to shift away from deflation to inflation bias. After ending QE3 last year, Yellen doesn’t want to hike rates, flatten GDP growth and stall out economic recovery.

With Wall Street already selling-off before Thanksgiving, global GDP growth slowing, especially in Asia and Europe, Yellen should think twice about a 2015 rate hike. U.S. banks are still adjusting to lower liquidity from last year’s end to QE3. Getting a strong employment report doesn’t change the global picture, especially in Europe where an unsustainable immigrant crisis promises to stress the European Union economy to the breaking point. World GDP counts on Wall Street to lead the way out of global economic slowdowns. Regardless of job gains and low U.S. unemployment report, the global economy is too fragile to watch Wall Street sell-off, signaling to multinational companies to hold off on future employment. Keeping current rates steady in December would send a loud message to the global economy that the Fed plans to do its part helping to spur economic growth.