Free Republic

Do the policy actions of monetary authorities actually affect economic activity? We know that time and other resources are expended, but what can we observe about the results of such efforts? In answering this question, it is helpful to begin with an account of how monetary authorities in discretionary, fiat currency regimes are traditionally thought to influence economic activity. Here, every college course in intermediate monetary theory tells essentially the same story. A nation’s money supply comprises two distinct components: paper currency and deposits at banking organizations. The former was the largest component in earlier times, but the latter has...

The largest U.S. financial institutions have enough armor to withstand the turmoil of a major and prolonged national and global recession, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The central bank’s annual “stress tests” show that the 33 largest financial institutions — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — all hold more capital than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. They also hold enough capital that, even if faced with billions of dollars in losses from loans as a result of an economic crisis, they would continue to function. The stress tests were created in the...

The U.S. Federal Reserve, already undecided on when next to raise interest rates, now has one more reason to wait: Britain's vote on Thursday to leave the European Union. Not that the Fed needed another reason. Weaker-than-expected growth in U.S. jobs in recent months had already forced U.S. central bankers to put off a rate hike at their meeting last week.But while data due early next month on June U.S. payrolls growth could help clear up doubts about the strength of the labor market, the political and economic consequences of Britain's exit from the EU will take months or years...

Janet Yellen has been doing a lot of talking lately, with more and more attention paid to the words she says and the contexts in which she delivers them. Maybe, then, it just seems as if the Fed Chair is speaking more, since it may be just as likely that she isn't doing anything different and that it is us who have changed. The fact that the FOMC has failed to follow through but for that one time in December is very likely the cause. Two years ago, Yellen spoke a lot of words but they were familiar, unnoticeable noise...

Economy: Federal Reserve policymakers are now unanimous: Forget about a hike in interest rates for now. Our only question is, what took them so long? Just a month ago we were told repeatedly that a Fed rate hike was "baked in the cake." After all, jobs seemed to be growing smartly, consumers were perking up, and Fed data showed net wealth at near-record levels. Then reality intervened in the form of a 38,000-job gain for May — a shockingly big shortfall, considering the consensus for 160,000 net new jobs. Then, despite President Obama's jawboning, British voters look increasingly likely to...

John Tamny, of Forbes and RealClearMarkets, has penned a highly original and stimulating look at the economics of money and banking: Who Needs the Fed? I sang the praises of his remarkable Popular Economics when that came out, and now this just-published book has me singing them again, in a new key. Let me note up front that there are substantial parts of this book with which I, so far at least, disagree. I have exchanged some emails with Mr. Tamny on these issues and nothing has been resolved. This is a not A Bad Thing: it can be actually...

Review by Steve Parkhurst: Who Needs The Fed?: What Taylor Swift, Uber, and Robots Tell Us About Money, Credit, and Why We Should Abolish America’s Central Bank, is not a dense economics book like the macro or micro economics of our youth. This book is written much more clearly than those old textbooks, and is actually interesting. The many rather short chapters make their case and then move along to the next. Tamny’s utter disdain for the Fed is both evident, and humorous along the way. But his book is not an angry diatribe, instead it is a fact-filled, example-laden...

“Someone” is getting desperate. Throughout the last week, anytime stocks have begun to correct or drop, “someone” has bought S&P 500 futures to prop the market up. Anyone who’s been involved with the markets for a while knows the difference between real buyers and manipulation. This is manipulation plain and simple. Look at all those “V” rallies. Three days in a row stocks opened DOWN and someone immediately stepped in and began buying aggressively. Another tell-tale sign of manipulation: the buying halts almost the moment stocks get to 2,100 on the S&P 500. At this point the manipulation ends. And...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made her usual bipolar remarks yesterday in a speech: Last week’s employment report was disappointing... ...Yellen... ...sounded like a politician and basically said nothing. I’m now going to tell you how Yellen’s comments will sound ... YELLEN: “Good afternoon everyone. FYI, this is a freakin’ OMG moment for us at the Fed. President Trump is bustin’ our cajones, and I’m pretty sure it’s because the Fed is being run by a dame. “The economy? I bet you want to know what the economy is doing. I could tell you this and tell you that. But...

May 31, 2016 Jeff_Berwick It seems barely a day passes now without some big name person warning of imminent collapse. The latest is Alan Greenspan. In an interview on Thursday he told Fox News that Venezuela is now under martial law and that “America is next.” He said that what was happening in Venezuela was inevitably going to take place in the US. I agree with this. In fact, we said this exact thing just last week with our article, “Venezuela Descends Into Chaos… Europe and US Next.” Funny enough, a few brainwashed sheeple said we were crazy for saying...

A U.S. Federal Reserve Bank president said Monday the global markets seem to be poised for an interest rate hike this summer. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, said his outlook was not "too surprising" since signs are pointing to a second quarter rebound in the U.S. gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. Bullard's remarks, made at an international conference in Seoul, South Korea, follow revised data Friday from the U.S. Commerce Department that the economy expanded faster than previously thought in the first three months of...

Last Friday, May 20, 2016, something happened in the U.S. Senate you won’t hear about in the mainstream media. You can read about it here. Gary Aminoff comments in the following short video.

Chinese officials plan to ask their American counterparts in annual talks next month about the chance of a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase in June, according to people familiar with the matter. The Chinese delegation will try to deduce whether a June or a July rate rise is more likely, as the nation’s policy makers prepare for the potential impact on financial markets and the yuan, the people said, asking not to be named as the discussions were private. In China’s view, if the Fed does lift borrowing costs, a July move would be preferable, the people said. A People’s Bank...

When the economy stumbles, can the Fed still catch its fall? A growing number of economists, market analysts and investors worry that the answer is no. The Federal Reserve’s radical approach to monetary policy since the financial crisis, they believe, has confounded its ability to do anything about a potential downturn — or an unexpected shock to the economy. Worse, others argue that by staying with a zero interest rate for so long, the Fed has put itself into a box... ...the dilemma. The post-financial crisis economic recovery still looks shaky. The Atlanta Fed’s widely followed GDPNow number, a timely...

There are two possible explanations for why markets so badly misjudged how close the Federal Reserve is to resuming interest-rate hikes. One possibility is that investors misread Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s speech on March 29 asserting that “caution is especially warranted” when it comes to raising rates with global risks so high and policymakers so low on conventional ammunition to counteract a downturn. Yet it seems much more likely that markets received the surprisingly dovish message as it was intended and responded just as Yellen hoped, easing global stresses that had grown as the dollar’s rise exacerbated pressure on China...

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she would support changes to the top ranks of the Federal Reserve, an issue recently championed by progressive groups amid debate over how long the central bank should keep supporting the American economy. The Fed is led by a seven-member board of governors based in Washington and a dozen regional bank presidents based across the country, from New York to Kansas City to San Francisco. The governors are nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate, but regional bank presidents are selected by their boards of directors, whose occupants are chosen by...

The U.S. Federal Reserve may need more powers to provide emergency funding to securities firms in times of extreme stress in order to deal with a liquidity crunch, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Sunday. "Providing these firms with access to the discount window might be worth exploring," Dudley said in prepared remarks at a financial markets conference in Amelia Island, Florida organized by the Atlanta Fed. The discount window is a credit facility through which banks borrow directly from the U.S. central bank in order to cope with liquidity shortages. The Fed currently has limited ability...

Anyone questioning the sustainability and rightness of The New Normal is immediately attacked by the mainstream-media defenders of the crumbling status quo. Not only is everything that broke in 2008 fixed, everything's going great globally, and anyone who dares question this narrative in a tin-foil hat conspiracy nut or simply an annoyingly doom-and-gloomer who recalcitrantly refuses to accept the positive glories of official statistics: low unemployment, rising valuations of stock market Unicorns, etc. But the New Normal is anything but normal; all the readings of artificial life-support and manipulation are off the charts. If the New Normal were indeed a...

“Negative interest rates” have become a phenomenon with economists and the media. But I’m writing to tell you something about negative interest rates you haven’t heard. You certainly won’t hear about it in the mainstream press. What’s coming at you is a historic event. It’s something our grandchildren will hear stories about, much like the Great Depression or the Cold War. It could send the price of gold much higher in the coming years. If you know what’s coming, it could mean the difference between having lots of free cash in retirement and barely getting by. And please remember this...

Donald Trump assailed the media on Monday for what he said was a misrepresentation of his comments on debt, rejecting the notion that he would have the United States default on his debt. "I said if we can buy back government debt as a discount. In other words, if interest rates go up and we can buy bonds back as a discount, if we are liquid enough as a country we should do that. In other words, we can buy back debt as a discount," the presumptive Republican nominee said in a telephone interview on CNN's "New Day." Those who...