The Man Who Knew by Sebastian Mallaby is an excellent biography of Alan Greenspan, but it may have greater value in understanding the power and limitations of the Federal Reserve itself. Greenspan has been accused of being an ideologue by
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Banks do not survive by loaning money to prevent insolvency; they loan money to provide liquidity. Banks are not loaning money, not because of the lack of liquidity but because there is a lack of prudent loans to make. Small
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For over a year economists I respect claimed this economy has hit bottom and is slowly recovering. Yet long after the bottom is in we see unemployment anemic and even increasing. While a recovery in employment does lag the economic
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(this was published previously in the Macon Telegraph) Being in the middle of a record economic crisis presents a rare learning opportunity. Several books are worthwhile for those seeking to understand what just happened. Too Big to Fail by Andrew
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“Despite elite concerns of a public backlash against capitalism, it has been the public, not Wall Street or Washington, that has supported capitalism all along. Financiers were disconcertingly quick to run straight into the governments arms, while the public has
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Wall Street’s financial leaders have been paraded before Congress to explain their efforts to restore stability to our financial system. Obama has turned on the populist spigot to demonize Wall Street to justify bigger taxes and fees and hip shot
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The poor business environment is driving down wages and costs, but inflation looms because of the government’s record deficit. Record low interest rates are not having the desired effect because the recession is more due to political policies than economic.
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Also note in the Wall Street Journal The Fed and the Crisis: a Reply to Ben Bernanke If one can not take responsibility for a mistake, one risks repeating it.
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Recent postings on the growing spread between private sector and government sector employment elicited some protest, many who claimed that most government workers could make more in the private sector. This is true for some. Many of the people who
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George Copper writes in “The Origin of Financial Crisis” that our economic thinking is regimented for failure in a world that is more influenced by the bubbles in financial assets. The efficient market hypothesis contends that prices find their natural
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Obama has posed this question and seems to think we can. William Dudley the new president of the New York Federal Reserve thinks they can and should act to identify and prevent asset- price bubbles. I remain very skeptical. The
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