monetary policy

In this interview from late October, Professor Bill Black tells us what he would demand, if he marched with Occupy Wall St. to the New York Fed.

For all practical purposes the Fed has done it all. And yet unemployment remains at depression levels of over 9% (and over 16% the way it used to be calculated not long ago) and the only thing keeping what’s called ‘inflation’ over 1% is a…

This chart from Der Spiegel shows you that the ECB has been buying a lot of periphery bonds. But, no matter how much they have bought, their purchases are dwarfed by the absolute magnitude of bonds coming due next year in Italy, over 300…

If the Federal Reserve were to load up on Italian bonds, the Fed would be exposed to default on foreign currency assets. If Italy defaults, then the Fed is on the hook. Offic

I don't have the bandwidth to discuss this topic but the last time I showed you a Scott Sumner video on this, I said this would be a hot topic and it is now. Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, and Christina Romer, amongst other leading economists…

Let’s talk about credible government bond backstops for a bit.

What do you think: is the Fed part of the problem or part of the solution?

Switzerland reports its October consumer prices on Monday. This could be important. The Swiss National Bank's decision to cap the franc took place on the same day that the August CPI was reported (Sept 6). It showed a 0.3%…

The bulls assert that the market is already discounting major risk and is reflecting widespread fear that may prove unfounded. That might be true if the market had collapsed as in 2000-2002 or 2008-2009. However, the current market is more…

Harvard Economist Kenneth Rogoff has a post up at Project Syndicate which does a good job in laying out the conundrum that Europe faces in the sovereign debt crisis. He theme is exchange rates and currency revulsion. But the underlying…