News
Bloomberg | World Bank Changing Rules, Fees to Commit 50% More Money
The World Bank, the international organization that’s trying to end extreme poverty by 2030, is changing lending rules and increasing some fees under a plan to boost the money it commits annually by about 50 percent.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | The Fed's Missing Guidance
Janet Yellen, like Ben Bernanke before her, believes that the Federal Reserve should communicate the reasons for its current policies and the strategy of its future policy actions. And so we have been told the basic plans are for gradually reducing the volume of large-scale asset purchases, and for keeping short-term interest rates low—"for some time," as she said in her speech on Monday—in order to stimulate employment and raise the inflation rate toward 2%.
Fortune | Why America's fear of 'too big to fail' is irrational
The U.S. Federal Reserve recently concluded that six of America's biggest banks enjoy about $8.5 billion a year in savings, mostly in the form of paying lower borrowing costs than smaller institutions. That might sound unfair, but that's a pretty small price U.S. taxpayers effectively pay to avoid another financial crisis. In addition, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, though unpopular, actually netted a profit for taxpayers as the government's investments have been gradually wound down; and then there is the case of Ally, the former General Motors (GM) finance subsidiary, whose planned IPO will result in a gain for the public.
