News
Bloomberg | ECB Policy Maker Says Bank May Not Spend a Cent on Bonds
European Central Bank Governing Council member Panicos Demetriades said the bank might not have to spend a cent on government bonds.
WSJ | Economists Are Uncertain More Fed Moves Will Work
Economists are skeptical about the economic benefits of another round of bond buying by the Federal Reserve, though most expect the central bank to embark on that course when its latest policy meeting concludes Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal's latest forecasting survey.
Bloomberg | Bernanke Policy Credibility Seen Outlasting His Fed Term
The end of Ben S. Bernanke’s term as Federal Reserve chairman in January 2014 hasn’t stopped investors from betting the central bank will hold the benchmark interest rate close to zero into the following year.
Market Watch | U.S. wholesale prices jump 1.7% in August
U.S. wholesale prices in August rose by the largest amount in more than three years after a late-summer resurgence in the price of oil, according to the latest government data.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | The wrong doctors
On Wednesday, a German court is going to rule whether the European Central Bank can buy an unlimited amount of debt from the national banks of the countries in the eurozone without violating German law. By week’s end, the U.S. Federal Reserve likely will decide if it is going to engage in another round of massive debt buying.
National Review | QE3: Unwise and Unnecessary
The effectiveness of the Fed’s unprecedented monetary morphine is rapidly waning. This makes the Fed’s anticipated initiation of a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) on Thursday all the more baffling. At a time of historically low interest rates, trillions of dollars of excess bank reserves parked at the Fed, and U.S. companies with an equally large amount of cash holdings, most economists believe yet another round of QE will have little effect on either growth or the unemployment rate.
