Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Monetary Policy Is Now An All-Too-Real Depressant
By June 2003, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate had fallen to a new low of about 5.25%. The pace of housing construction had risen to a rate of about 1.6 million new units annually, leading to overall employment in the construction industry of about 6.7 million workers.
Forbes | Bernanke Administers Another Cruel Dose Of Financial Morphine With QE3
After nearly four years of ultra-low interest rates and a tripling of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet—but with little progress on reducing the unemployment rate— the Bernanke Fed has once again come to the rescue with another dose of financial morphine.
Blogs
WSJ | Fed Action May Widen Wealth Gap
One unintended consequence of another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve is that it will likely widen the gap in the consumer sector between the recovered-from-recession and the still-struggling.
CATO | ‘Has the Fed Been a Failure?’
That is the provocative title of the lead paper in the prestigious economics publication, the Journal of Macroeconomics. It is authored by George Selgin, William D. Lastrapes, and Lawrence H. White. (Selgin and White are professors, Cato scholars, and many-time participants in the annual Cato monetary conference).
Free Banking | The real problem today is not so much nominal
Scott Sumner told us in September 2009 that "the real problem was nominal," that is, the recession and its high unemployment were primarily due to an unsatisfied excess demand for money (combined with real effects on debt burdens of nominal income being below its previous path).
