monetary policy

This from the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel: President Barack Obama will announce Tuesday that he is nominating Ben Bernanke for a second four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel…

This just in from Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve must make public reports about recipients of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers under programs created to address the financial crisis, a federal judge ruled. The case is: Bloomberg LP…

Over the past week, America’s banks have had a bumper earning season, in part courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policy. Even before this week, a number of market pundits (including me) began to wonder aloud whether…

On numerous occasions you will have heard me use the term ‘monetizing debt’ to describe what happens when the central bank creates money out of thin air in order to increase reserves in the banking system. The central bank is certainly…

Central banks are not the only ones printing money to help get through this financial crisis.  Private citizens are increasingly turning to the printing press to help alleviate their financial problems as well.  My translation of…

I saw this post with cool pictures on popping bubbles and I thought about Alan Greenspan.  Sir Alan says you cannot recognize bubbles until after they have burst.  I think that’s nonsense – certainly in the case of the “Great…

In the clearest signal yet that we are still in a potentially devastating global deflationary spiral, The Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank and the world’s oldest central bank, has effectively cut interest rates to minus 0.25% and has started…

Of late, there have been a lot of worries about he potential for inflation in the U.S.  Marc Faber is the most noted pundit in this regard. Over-the-top comments he made back in May about hyperinflation in the U.S. may have been a catalyst…

It seems like a long time off, but the Fed is going to eventually have to withdraw all of the excess liquidity it has created when the economy recovers.  However, doing so will prove tricky.  First, we have debt deflationary…

In case you missed it, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill this morning making his caseregarding the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch deal.  The Chairman stated in unequivocal terms that he did not pressure…