Archive for Federal Reserve
Tyler Cowen on Treasury Default
This is my favorite Tyler post of all time, with the only possible exception being his unwitting out-of-sample defense of Austrian business cycle theory. First, Tyler uses his extraordinarily powerful mind to concoct a scenario in which the economy collapses from the debt standoff: As the evening of October 16th approaches, John Boehner is preparing […]
Read moreObama to Nominate Yellen for Fed Chief
Details here. And holy cow did you folks know this?! [Yellen] is married to, and has co-authored a number of papers with, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof, whom she met in the fall of 1977 when they were both economists at the Fed board. Must…resist…lemons…joke…
Read moreUS Government Starting to Face a Cash Crunch
This Neil Irwin post is pretty good (I think I got this from Alex Tabarrok on Twitter): [I]n the…market for Treasury bills, things are starting to get scary. These are short-term IOU’s of the U.S. government, bills issued for 30, 60 or 90 days. They enable Uncle Sam to manage cash flow much the way […]
Read moreYes Virginia, Bernanke Is Indeed Driving the Stock Market
In a recent post where I linked to Peter Klein’s commentary on the non-taper, at least one person challenged the idea that the so-called recovery was being fueled completely by Fed inflation. Well, check out the following chart, which plots the Fed’s total assets against the S&P500 index:
Read moreThings Don’t Look Good for Those Fixated on Aggregate Demand
First let me relay Peter Klein’s take on the Fed’s non-taper announcement: The above is a good summary of the Rothbardian view on our current situation. Now, there have been some developments in just the last week or so that, in a just world, would cause severe angst in the psyches of those who have […]
Read moreMs. Yellen, It’s a Trap!
That Larry Summers is one sly dog. With his “surprise” move to continue QE3, Big Ben just bought himself some time to safely exit the scene, following the pattern of the last two Fed handovers: (It should go without saying that the red lines above are only approximately correct. You can tell I don’t have […]
Read morePotpourri
==> The WSJ and I are pen pals. ==> Next week on Friday (September 27) I’ll be giving a talk at San Jose State on interventionism in the Austrian tradition. (I’m in California because on Saturday I’m giving the keynote address for a celebration of Mises’ birthday. I still haven’t gotten his present, gah!!) ==> […]
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