One of my favorite movies to watch with my son was “A Knights Tale” starring Heath Ledger. A rag to riches story about a boy given by his father to a Knight as a squire. However, after the Knight dies, the boy takes his place and fights his way to nobility. 

During his adventure the villain, Adhemar, discovers William’s secret identity and has him imprisoned for impersonating a knight. As William awaits his fate, Adhemar visits him in his cell.

As I discussed yesterday, the “Fed Is Screwed”in their efforts to hike interest rates. With deflationary pressures on the rise, economic growth deteriorating and financial markets in turmoil the ability to tighten monetary policy has now passed. 

This weekend’s reading list is a compilation of views on the economy, the markets, and the Fed. Like William, it is becoming more apparent that they have each been “weighed, measured and found wanting.”

THE LIST

1) 5 Reasons Americans Are Unhappy by Quentin Fottrell via MarketWatch

“One reason for all the unhappiness could be that wages are stagnant, and many people are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. ‘Money is a little like health, you don’t want to talk about it with your friends because there’s a little bit of shame around it,’ says Andrew Meadows, a San Francisco-based producer of ‘Broken Eggs,’ a documentary about retirement, and vice president of brand and culture at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings.

Two recent studies carried out by independent pollsters say that more than 60% of adults have no emergency savings or less than $1,000 in their savings account. And among those who had savings prior to 2008, 57% said they’d used some or all of it in the Great Recession, according to a U.S. Federal Reserve survey of over 4,000 adults released last year. Some people think you need to have tens of thousands of dollars to start saving and investing, so rather than save or invest a little, they do nothing, Meadows says. ‘They ask if there’s going to be another crash.'”