The nation needs the Congressional investigations, but they are, I caution again, predictably un-strategic, even awkward. Republicans stupidly sold the hearings as conclusive (thus inorganic), accordingly seen as partisan payback, not transparent good government. Lacking choreography, they appeal mainly to…
In the final week of 2022, we Americans can foresee two significant economic risks in 2023. The first one is a probability that the Federal Reserve will get weak-kneed and stop raising interest rates before inflation is truly under control….
President Joe Biden is taking victory laps for last year’s reduced budget deficit. No one would be happier than me to see this number fall in a significant way. But the decline has nothing to do with the president’s policies,…
In March, inflation surged to 8.5 percent over a yearlong period — the highest in more than 40 years. The Federal Reserve’s reign of easy money unleashed the scourge. While enormously destructive, inflation isn’t complicated. It’s caused by too much money…
I’m always amazed to hear people say that the national debt doesn’t matter because interest rates are low. Yet it’s a common refrain on the left and sometimes on the right. The next step in that line of thinking is…
The New York Federal Reserve injected more than $300 billion in loans into the repurchase agreements (repo) market last week. That same week, the Congressional Budget Office announced a year-over-year increase of $39 billion in the quarterly deficit to bring…
The Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed) has a policy to create and sustain 2-percent inflation in America on an annual basis. J. P. Morgan would be chagrined to know that he helped create a central bank that promotes inflation. The…
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Congress on Wednesday. President Trump, wanting lower interest rates, talks of firing or demoting Powell. But the Wall Street Journal reports that Powell likely finds a friendlier audience on Capitol Hill than at…
The stock market is terrifying me. I don’t like losing money that I’ve worked hard to get. I don’t like losing money I need for my future, however brief that might be. I have been besieged by persons asking me what…