News
Bloomberg | ECB Weighing Fed-Style Meeting Schedule on Policy
The European Central Bank is considering holding its meetings to set interest rates every six weeks instead of monthly, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Fed Hawks vs. Doves: The Sequel
We are in the dog days of Fed-watching now, but the boredom won't last long. Once the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announces a few more $10-billion-a-month "taperings" of asset purchases, the financial markets will fixate completely on the Federal Reserve's eventual "exit" from its current extraordinarily easy monetary policy. It will be all Fed, all the time.
Forbes | The Gold Standard Had Nothing To Do With Panics And Busts
One of the main reasons that detractors of the gold standard contend it is a “barbarous relic” (in John Maynard Keynes’s phrase) is that it was implicated in so many financial panics and economic busts back in its heyday in the 19th century. As the New York Times’ pet Internet troll once put it, sarcastically, “under the gold standard, America had no major financial panics other than in 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933. Oh, wait….returning to the gold standard is an almost comically (and cosmically) bad idea.”
Market Watch | Williams says first rate hike likely second-half 2015
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said Monday it will likely be more than a year before the central bank begins raising interest rates.
Fortune | Is the Fed quietly planning new bitcoin regulations?
Minutes from a recent Federal Reserve Advisory Council meeting suggest the regulator is more interested in the virtual currency than previously thought.
Market Watch | Low interest rates have few fans
As just about everyone must know by now, interest rates are the lowest they have been in quite some time. Short-term rates have been close to zero since 2008, while long-term rates are hovering at their lowest levels in decades.
