The Bernanke Strangle

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- By now everybody knows the Bernanke Put, and it's been the best thing since sliced bread.

Of course, nobody with any self-esteem would think the Federal Reserve can solve all the problems. But whenever there's any problem, everybody remembers the Bernanke Put is there and the problem disappears. If it doesn't, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke can double down until it does.

However, as the Fed balance sheet stands at $3 trillion and is set to increase by about $1 trillion a year (plus a few percent of interest payment and minus an unknown and varying amount of maturing debt), the risk associated with the inevitable and eventual shrinking of the balance sheet increases.

Even before economic strength approaches the Fed limits outlined in QE3/QE4, all bond yields would start to increase in anticipation of the end of quantitative easing. Borrowing costs would increase for everybody, from governments to businesses to home buyers to consumers. This would put the brake on economic recovery and, depending on severity of the bond bubble bursting, may very well kill it.

This is the flip side of Bernanke Put -- the Bernanke Call. The two combined makes the Bernanke Strangle because it literally strangles the economy in limbo.

The unprecedented Fed transparency in publicizing clear and fixed targets for QE has the unfortunate consequence of telegraphing the end to the world. Ambiguity can be a beautiful thing, as Bernanke will one day learn. It's the golden rule of all central banking.

Of course, transparency has its merits, too. But losing flexibility is too big a price to pay, unless one buys into the thinking that the health of economy can be sufficiently defined by two numbers.