Monday’s Wall Street Journal (July 10, 2017, page A2) contains a remarkable article. It is remarkable because it reveals the assumptions and attitudes of the experts who are trying to administer the global economy in which we find ourselves. The headline of the article provides the ...
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Today the Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce that short-term interest rates will remain unchanged. The Fed says that its decisions about whether or not to raise interest rates will be “data dependent,” but this doesn’t inspire much confidence, because the ...
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One of the first things that you learn about economic growth, if you learn anything at all, is that growth is not a zero-sum game. That is, when a company like Apple increases its earnings by 40% or so, as it did last quarter, it didn’t simply “take” those earnings from its ...
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One intended goal of the federal reserve’s bond buying is to induce a “wealth effect” in homeowners by inflating the perceived value of their home. By artificially suppressing mortgage rates, houses become easier to buy, demand for houses increases accordingly, and prices go ...
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For months the market has waited anxiously for the Federal Reserve’s decision about “tapering” its stimulus program of large-scale bond buying, which has become known as Quantitative Easing (QE). Many investors believe the program is propping up financial markets. Indeed, as this graphic from ...
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