monetary policy

For much of the past year I have been a critic of the Fed for keeping rates in easy money territory. One major reason was that they were going to let the inflation genie out of the bottle and that was going to be a problem. Now, I feel…

In an environment where the U.S. Dollar is rising and everything is falling, one needs to pay attention to the fine details. For me, its in the UK and its 5% base interest rate. Oil is now below $117 a barrel, so it stands to reason that…

As we are now one year in to the credit crunch, it is obvious to anyone how widespread and deep this credit crisis really is. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the 'light at the end of the tunnel.' Quite frankly, there is none.…

In today's Financial Times, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has taken the unusual step of playing market pundit even while his successor struggles to deal with the mighty financial turmoil he engendered. It is highly…

I fully anticipate this will happen, so the question becomes: what will the Fed do?The FDIC stepped in at two banks over the weekend, 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank. These banks failed as a result of construction loans…

Last month, in a post called 'Chart of the day: real hourly earnings' I said that U.S. real wage rates were lower today than they were a generation ago on the eve of the first oil hock. hat's pretty poor. Today 'UK Bubble' highlights the…

I have said that the Fed is dovish and wants inflation to do its job of reducing the economic burden of the massive debt in the United States. Fed Governor William Poole, who just recently left the Fed, has apparently confirmed this. See…

Monetary policy has never been so interesting. With price increases in food and energy causing upheaval around the globe, citizens of the world are crying out for policy makers to get a handle on inflation. Yet, the global banking system…

Update 4 Jul 2008: see a fuller answer to this question at my new post: The ECB is right and the Fed is wrongThat's the question Ambrose Evans-Pritchard addressed in his blog yesterday. I am firmly in the deflationist camp, meaning…

The wage-price spiral is now underway in core Europe as German wages are on the rise. The ECB will surely act as it has no other choice with inflation now the dominant economic concern across the Eurozone.Today, German daily Der Spiegel…