monetary policy

The yield on all U.S. Treasurys securities are at historic lows. The 3-year T-bill and the 1-year T-bill have both actually sported negative yields -- meaning investors are paying the U.S. Governemnt to borrow money from them. This is the…

Russia is one country that we do not want to see fall on hard times. It has great geo-strategic power, but a weak economy, declining oil output and revenues and increasingly autocratic rule? Now it is being roiled by the global financial…

Back in November, Bloomberg News was forced to sue the Federal Reserve to gain greater disclosure on how emergency loans were being made to financial institutions and on what collateral was being used. I have followed this story closely…

Caroline Baum had a good column today at Bloomberg in which she suggests central banks consider asset prices in monetary policy going forward. In the piece she quoted William White, a former economist from the Bank for International…

The yield on he three-month U.S. treasury bill went below zero for the first time ever. This seems to be an unprecedented move where investors are actually paying the U.S. Government to borrow money. In my estimation, this is not just a…

First the Fed and now the ECB and Bank of England are talking about some form of quantitative easing! Of course, if they are all going to do it, do we have a dollar crash or is it more of a crisis of confidence in fiat currencies in…

Quite a punchy speech from the Fed Chairman, especially the conclusion, which suggests big support ahead for housing: In this regard, reducing the number of preventable foreclosures would not only help families stay in their homes, it…

One feature that is peculiar to the present downturn is the accumulation of reserves at the U.S. Federal Reserve. I imagine it is no different at other central banks, though I have not seen the data. Let me tell you what this reserve…

As interest rates in the developed economies approach the zero bound, we must begin to ask ourselves how effective monetary policy can reasonably be in these circumstances. And if policy is to be effective, which policy tools will be most…

Japan’s policy makers generally procrastinated considerably in terms of implementing any kind of stimulative measures, as well as prematurely reversing the benign impact of policies which had some earlier success. In terms of monetary…