Posts Tagged ‘monetary policy’
By James Kwak Yesterday I wrote an Atlantic column about the bizarre situation that the Federal Reserve is in. Ordinarily, we think central bank independence is important because it permits the bank to take unpopular, anti-growth steps when the political branches of government want popular, pro-growth steps. But today we’re in Bizarro world: the political [...]
By James Kwak In a Congressional hearing today, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, strongly criticized Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke for failing to contain the severe inflation threat posed by the Tooth Fairy. Ryan pointed to numerous studies showing that, despite ongoing economic sluggishness, the Tooth Fairy is paying much [...]
The American Economics Association is meeting in Atlanta, where Simon says it is frigid. I went to an early-January conference in Atlanta once. There was a quarter-inch of snow, the roads turned to ice, and everything closed. All flights were canceled, so I and some friends ended up taking the train to Washington, DC, which [...]
I generally avoid writing about monetary policy, since every economics course I’ve taken since college has been a micro course, and besides Simon is a macroeconomist, among other things. But since just about everyone in my RSS feed has been linking to Tim Duy’s recent article on the Fed, I thought I would try to [...]
This post was written by StatsGuy, a regular commenter here and very occasional guest contributor. We asked him to expand on the ideas he put forward in this comment on the relationships between monetary policy, international capital flows, and bank capital requirements. Former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin is most famous for his notorious quip [...]
There has been a lot of talk recently about Ben Bernanke, he of the Wall Street Journal op-ed and the multiple Congressional appearances. (Hey, can anyone put me in touch with his agent?*) At the risk of seeming ignorant (or revealing myself to be ignorant), I must say I don’t really understand what the fuss [...]
The usual grounds for optimism these days is the fact that the Obama Administration is clearly going to propose a big fiscal package with two components: a large conventional stimulus (spending plus tax cuts); and a big housing refinance scheme, in which the Treasury will potentially become the largest-ever intermediary for mortgages. These ideas are appealing under the [...]
Right here. I wouldn’t ordinarily just pass along a link you can find elsewhere, but I can’t help remarking that that makes two former chief economists of the IMF to take this position. That was Simon’s old job; his article on the topic is here. Of course, you are free to keep whatever opinion you [...]
With the Federal Reserve’s main policy tool, the Fed funds rate, past the point of diminishing returns (although the target rate is 1%, the actual rate has been well below that for weeks), there are more signs that the Fed is willing to use new tools to stimulate the economy. Fed Chairman Bernanke’s speech today [...]
There was a new theme buried in today’s announcements about purchasing $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets $200 billion in assets backed by other debt including student loans, credit cards, car loans, and small business loans. The New York Times story included these two paragraphs (emphasis added): The action by the Federal Reserve on buying mortgage-backed [...]
Simon and Peter argued in Real Time Economics earlier today that we need some inflation (see the post just before this one) – not only because deflation is bad, but also because it helps protect asset values, including the assets for which the government is now on the hook. James Hamilton at Econbrowser has a [...]
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Ben Bernanke Doesn’t Get the Message
August 30, 2011 in Commentary
Tags: Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, inflation, monetary policy
By James Kwak I was on vacation last week (far from Jackson Hole) when Ben Bernanke gave his widely anticipated speech. The media (see the Times, for example) seemed to focus mainly on his criticisms of the political branches and economic policymaking, which were accurate enough. But in my opinion, Bernanke drew the wrong lessons [...]