- Back
- Education, Culture, Ideology
- (A) Politics, Political Parties, Election Regulations
- (A) Social Policy, Transfers and Entitlements
- Immigration
- (A) Monetary Policy
- (A) Fiscal Policy
- (A) Science, Technology and Innovation
- (A) Constitutional Issues, Federalism, Federal Agencies and Administrative Law
- (A) Energy and Environmental Policy
- (A) National Defense and Foreign Policy
- (B) Social Policy, Transfers and Entitlements
- (B) Politics, Political Parties, Election Regulations
- (B) National Defense and Foreign Policy
- (B) Fiscal Policy
- (B) Monetary Policy
- (B) Constitutional Issues, Federalism, Federal Agencies and Administrative Law
- (B) Science, Technology and Innovation
- (B) Energy and Environmental Policy
- (A) Education
- (B) Culture, Character and Ideology
- (A) Culture, Character and Ideology
- (B) Education
- (A) Russia and Europe
- (A) Middle East
- (A) China and the Far East
- (A) Latin America
- (B) Russia and Europe
- (B) Latin America
- (B) Middle East
- (B) China and the Far East
By Andy Kessler - Anything that interferes with markets and price discovery is dangerous. Unions distort prices. Student loans—and the policy of forgiving them—distort prices. So do quotas, subsidies, green policies and ethanol requirements. Even lockdowns and stimulus checks. Taxes, especially capital-gains taxes, distort the cost of capital. Redistribution is the ultimate market manipulation. And tariffs, which are taxes, distort prices, jobs and currencies. Read More
John H. Cochrane - Over the past 15 years the Fed has engineered a fundamental advance in monetary policy by paying interest on reserves and supplying “ample” reserves...Banks holding lots of reserves don’t lend less. If the Fed buys Treasury bonds to create reserves, banks hold more in reserves and less in Treasurys. Money available for lending is the same...More deeply, we learned that the Fed can fully control the short-term interest rate by simply varying the rate it pays on reserves without having to ration money. Read More
By David Malpass - The Fed’s bond purchases make matters worse by enabling Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is broken. Normalization of interest rates has been needed for years to allow markets, not regulators, to allocate capital. But with interest rates at 5.5% and the dollar strong, the inflation battle must shift to the problem of government spending and regulation. The Fed’s silence on the fiscal and regulatory roots of this inflation crisis, and its insistence on using an antiquated inflation model that blames growth and jobs for price hikes, risks an even weaker U.S. economy. Read...
By William M. Isaac - Instead, the FDIC should have turned to its 1982 innovation: the modified deposit payoff. This would ameliorate the damage a bank failure inflicts on the economy without creating the moral hazard accompanying a 100% guarantee. Uninsured money that would otherwise sit idle for years at the failed bank receivership would be returned promptly to the local marketplace to support economic growth. Read More
By Judy Shelton - Going back those 40 some years, we can draw lessons ... about how to coordinate monetary and fiscal policy effectively. ...The Reagan plan consisted of four parts: “(1) substantial reduction in the growth of federal expenditures, (2) significantly reduced federal tax rates, (3) prudent relief of federal regulatory burdens, and (4) a monetary policy on the part of the independent Federal Reserve System consistent with those policies.”...“The goal of this Administration is to nurture the strength and vitality of the American people by reducing the burdensome, intrusive role of the federal government; by lowering tax rates and cutting...
By Tunku Varadarajan and John Cochran - The present crisis may “reteach our politicians, officials and commentariat the classic lessons that there are fiscal limits, that fiscal and monetary [policy] are intertwined.” It may also teach them, Mr. Cochrane says, “that a country with solid long-term institutions can borrow, but a country without them is in trouble.” Read More
By Judy Shelton - Our nation’s central bank has become too prominent, too political and too powerful. The Fed’s ability to purchase massive quantities of U.S. Treasury securities is the dominant factor influencing interest rates across the board and thus the valuation of financial assets. The entire term structure of bond yields reflecting the relationship between short-term and long-term rates is keyed to the 10-year Treasury note rate. What would that benchmark yield reveal if Fed purchases weren’t distorting the market? The Fed’s prominence not only undermines supply-and-demand interactions for accurately pricing the cost of investment capital; it also compromises...
By Phil Gramm and Mike Solon - Then as now, what drove higher prices was excess demand owing to runaway government spending. Ronald Reagan and Paul Volcker understood. History withholds its wisdom from those who ignore its lessons. Forty years ago this month, the fiscal policy of President Ronald Reagan and the monetary policy of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker broke the back of the 20th century’s most destructive inflation, ushered in an economic expansion that effectively lasted a quarter of a century, and banished inflation—until now. Read More