Part one of a two-part series. Interest rates have been near zero for the past 15 years, except for a brief period when they rose as high as 2½%. That’s…
Why the U.S. Is Broke
First of four parts. We should have been alarmed when the accumulated federal debt reached $1 trillion. Ronald Reagan was president then. Today, our deficit regularly exceeds $1 trillion each…
Where They Stand, Part Six: Federal Debt
What may be the most pressing issue when the pandemic ends has not even been addressed by either presidential candidate. Thanks to the pandemic and the economic lockdown it produced,…
What to Expect in 2020
“There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.” …
Why Interest Rates Will Remain Low
Part two of a two-part series on interest rates and the federal debt. Servicing the federal debt will cost U.S. taxpayers $479 billion this year, even though interest rates are…
The Interest Rate Paradox
Part one of a two-part series on interest rates and the federal debt. Call it the interest rate paradox. If interest rates remain low or trend lower, the federal debt…
The Bond Market’s Plumbing Springs a Leak
Part one of a two-part series on the repo market. “A lot o’ people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch o’ unconnected incidents ‘n…
Mismeasuring Inflation
Part two of a two-part series on the Fed’s approach to inflation. In our last post we noted the Federal Reserve Board’s obsession with trying to achieve 2% inflation. Not…
Back to ZIRP?
During the Obama Administration, the Federal Reserve Board held interest rates close to zero for seven years. The economy stagnated. But now, with the benchmark federal funds rate at 2.25%…
Fed Driving in Reverse – Part 2
While the Federal Reserve Board may have contributed to December’s market swoon, it also played a role in the stock market’s best January performance in more than three decades. In…