Federal Reserve

Ten years after the financial crisis, Robert F. Bruner surveys the best books on what went wrong and what still should be fixed.

What should be the requirements for the next vice-chair of the Federal Reserve? At present these are elementary, I believe, and each one points to the same person.

Blow out the candles and cut the cake! On February 4 Jerome Powell will turn 65. The day before, he’ll replace Janet Yellen as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the first non-economist to hold the title in 40 years.

Republicans’ first victory of 2018 will likely be Judge Timothy J. Kelly’s denial of the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction in English v. Trump following a hearing on the Friday before Christmas.

“Mournful, dazed, sullen, traumatized, self-absorbed, defensive, remote, morbid, bleak, bummed-out, alienated, unprotected, besieged.” That’s how a leading pop music critic describes the music of choice of “millennial and younger listeners . . . making their way into an era of accelerating income…

Thanksgiving has come and gone, diets have been broken, and some 88 percent of us have eaten turkey, carving up some 46 million birds in the process. The hunter-gatherers are safely home from the malls—or at least most of them are. The less courageous stay-at-their-computers are resting their…

“Janet, thanks for dropping by the Oval Office. It’s a dump but I’m packing to leave for China to see my new best friend Xi Jinping, so I couldn’t get away to my New Jersey country club. He really likes me. I tricked him into letting us sell some beef in China while he is distracted by building…

President Donald Trump on Thursday officially nominated Jerome Powell to replace Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve.

President Donald Trump is planning to nominate Jerome Powell to replace Janet Yellen as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, the New York Times reported Monday.

Recent reports suggest that the contest for the next chair of the Federal Reserve is down to Jay Powell, a current member of the Federal Reserve board, and Kevin Warsh, a member of the board from 2006 to 2011. And the rumor mill suggests that it is Warsh—a former Wall Street denizen whose…

If you think monetary policy is getting boring, think again. True, Fed chair Janet Yellen had no surprises for us earlier this week. To contain the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed printed more than one trillion new dollars to finance its purchase of the assets that it now plans to sell. That took…

And then there were four. Vacancies on the Federal Reserve Bank’s seven-person board of governors, that is, now that vice-chair Stanley Fischer has tendered his resignation for “personal reasons”—widely believed to be his wife’s health.

Central Bank, est. 1913, seeks new Chair, to assume duties Feb. 5, 2018: Applicants will be considered even if they have graduate training in economics, although a doctorate might prove a deterrent to selection. Patience to sit through long staff meetings discussing arcane forecasting issues…

It was a bad week for the president of the United States and might prove to have been a career-ending week for the chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating whether Trump obstructed justice in connection with the FBI probe into Russian activities…

In two weeks Donald Trump will serve his one-hundredth day as President of the United States of America. He approaches that milestone with an approval rating of 40 percent, the lowest of any modern-day president at this stage of his tenure. The man who made his reputation, and part of any fortune…

The Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate for the second time in three months on Wednesday, a signal that the principals of the banking system view the economy's health as stable.

The Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate for only the second time since 2008 Wednesday, and left its economic projections mostly unchanged despite granting the uncertainty of how Donald Trump's economic policies could alter the economy and its future decision-making.

Mervyn King served as governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013—which means that the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression happened smack-dab in the middle of his watch. What better person to explain what caused that 2008 debacle and how to prevent a recurrence than…

The American economy continues to grow, albeit slowly, and the jobs markets has been generating enough jobs to keep us at or close to full employment without triggering inflation. The economy added 156,000 jobs last month, not seriously out of line with the 75,000-125,000 jobs that observers such…

We are having two crises. One is in the boardroom of the Federal Reserve system. In a speech to her central bank colleagues at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen was believed by others than this writer to say that she was preparing to raise interest rates, subject of course to…

They should have known better, those central bankers and policy-watchers who thought that Janet Yellen's speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday would mark a volte-face. Yellen, who skipped last year's meeting, came to Jackson Hole under pressure from important colleagues to commit to raising…

Janet Yellen has given her speech and her words, as parsed by CNN/Money, indicate that, "a rate hike this year is still on the table."

It didn't take Brexit to make forecasters take a dim view of the future of the U.S. economy. A cloud considerably larger than a man's hand hovered over the computers of most forecasters before Brexit shocked markets into a deep but transient swoon. The Federal Reserve Board said it dare not raise…

"I must do it. But I fear to do it. Upon my soul I do." So said Alec Guinness' King Faisal to Peter O'Toole's Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia when faced with demands that he place his Bedouin fighters under British command. And so in effect said Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen to the…

Guilty as charged. That's my response to anyone who accuses me of having spilled too much ink writing about what Janet Yellen might do, has done, and will do now that she has raised the Fed funds rate for the first time in a decade. By way of expiation, here is a look at some less-heralded…

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done slowly. That is official Federal Reserve Board going-forward policy. The announcement of the Fed's first interest rate increase in almost a decade, an upward move of 0.25 percent from near zero, says, and twice, that future increases…

Saturday's Wall Street Journal revealed that the Federal Reserve has been conducting numerous exercises to explore would it could to arrest the growth of asset bubbles as well as the risks inherent in doing such a thing (as opposed to nothing about it, which has been the standard operating…

"I'll build a stairway to Paradise," promised songwriter George Gershwin decades ago. Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen is about to try to do the same, taking interest rates up that stairway, from the zero level set during the hellish days of the financial crisis to the Paradise of normality or…

What kind of skills might be essential for someone to be head of a Federal Reserve Regional Bank? If your response is a basic knowledge of monetary policy and a deep understanding of financial markets you are mistaken: The answer is, apparently, experience at Goldman Sachs. The appointment of…

One of the big problems with media "fact checkers" is the presumption of expertise that the reporter doesn't actually have. Sitting around googling whenever a politician opens his or her mouth often means a rush to judgment, and the results can be embarassing. Last night, Politico Pro sent out the…

Coming soon to a central bank near you, in time for the Christmas shopping season, an increase in interest rates, courtesy of Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy committee. Or perhaps not. Folks living in euroland can expect the gift that keeps on giving,…

Interesting political debates typically have what could be called primary effects. In Wednesday night's case, those would include the Bush-Rubio exchange, which did a lot of good for Rubio and a lot of damage to Bush, and the Cruz assault on the moderators, which was dazzling.

The U.S. economy is chugging along. Not at high speed, but at a steady 2.25 percent annual rate, with retailers stocking up in anticipation of a very merry holiday season. The unemployment rate is down to 5.1 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Board headed lower to its “long-run normal”…

“A fact can be a beautiful thing,” sings one of the characters in the award-winning musical, “Promises, Promises.” True. Unfortunately, a gaggle of facts can be somewhere between confusing and a curse, especially if you are a central banker who has specialized in promises, promises that a process…

The eagerly anticipated jobs report for August has come in and it is a disappointment … sort of. Expectations were for an increase of 217,000 jobs. The number was … 173,000. But

A former Goldman Sachs executive just got named to an important job in the Federal Reserve system and if you think that’s a problem then you just may be an anti-Semite. Or maybe it’s that you don’t appreciate diversity.

Hurry up and wait. Hurry to the announcement by the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy committee, and then wait for the next one. After 2,417 days of keeping its key interest rate at zero, on Wednesday of last week the Fed policy team decided that a few more weeks or months at that level might…

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has devoted time of late to discussing the significant problem of inequality. At a conference on April 2nd, Ms. Yellen urged that research be undertaken “to understand whether any policies may hold people back or discourage upward mobility.” Perhaps such research…

So all’s well. No more financial meltdowns. No more taxpayer bailouts of bonus-hunting, risk-taking bankers. The Federal Reserve Board’s regulators have decided that all 31 of the largest U.S. banks, including seven that are foreign-owned, would survive a severe recession with sufficient capital to…

Markets work. That’s the message from Walmart’s decision to raise its starting wage for 500,000 of its 1.3 million US employees to $10 per hour starting next year. That’s 37% above the statutory minimum of $7.25. No, the notably cost-conscious company, the largest private-sector employer in…

At the Washington Post, Christopher Ingraham demonstrates through one chart "why it feels like the recession never ended." Here's the chart, with part of Ingraham's explanation below:

Things are getting more expensive, and the American people know it. A new poll from Rasmussen Reports found three-quarters of Americans say they are concerned about inflation, with 81 percent saying they are paying more for groceries and 71 percent saying they expect to pay even more for groceries…

Republicans are searching for big, bold ideas that will inspire voters to embrace a conservative agenda. To unite its disparate segments, the GOP needs to uphold our nation’s founding principles—a key requirement for Tea Party adherents—while fostering the aspirations of those who believe the…

Everybody seems to agree that the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing program, which involves buying bonds to lower interest rates, plays a role in spurring economic growth. Folks differ on whether the contribution to growth outweighs the risk of inflation. 

Income inequality in the United States has been increasing for a generation. The share of pretax income received by the top 1 percent of earners rose from 7.8 percent in 1973 to 17.4 percent in 2010. A broader and widely used measure of inequality—the Gini coefficient—indicates that inequality for…

It's been more than a week now and I’m beginning to suspect she’s not going to call, so here I will offer Janet Yellen the advice I’ve been hoping to give her privately since the Senate confirmed her as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. My advice is: Think about John Cowperthwaite. By this I…

First, a matter of numbers and nomenclature: Bill de Blasio, who is being hailed like Eliot Spitzer before him as the new face of American liberalism, won his race to be New York City’s next mayor with a near-record victory margin but also record low turnouts in both the primary and the general…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with the American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis on the recent actions by the Federal Reserve.

Yesterday, the Fed decided that the economy was not yet sufficiently robust for it to "taper." Wall Street celebrated.

It’s not that anyone here in Washington begrudges Britain, and to some extent Spain, their fledgling recoveries. But President Obama and other proponents of more government spending aren’t delighted that those nations’ austerity programs seem to be paying off in renewed growth rather than in the…

At first, it was fun—this parlor game of guessing who the Obama administration will appoint as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. We all assumed it would be Janet Yellen, because she’s a woman. And then suddenly we had Larry Summers all over the leading financial newspapers receiving…

Have you heard the news? Janet Yellen is positively clairvoyant!

Data-driven, legacy-driven. Keep those two descriptives in mind and you will know a good deal about the prospects for a dialing back of asset purchases—“tapering”—by Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke. After some confusing, market-roiling signals in the past two weeks, Bernanke has made it…

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, well ahead of the paltry 0.4 percent in the final quarter of 2012. Consumer spending led the way, increasing at a rate of 3.2 percent. But leave the champagne on ice for now. Consumer outlays were boosted by involuntary…

The fiscal cliff is a diversion, designed by politicians to conceal their inability to come to grips with the fact that they continue to spend too much, and refuse to reform a tax structure that reduces the competitiveness of American companies in world markets. No matter what deal is cut, whether…

A perceptive e-mail from a friend from the world of finance:

Last week, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announced the central bank would begin another round of quantitative easing, the term of art for the Fed's policy of purchasing securities in an attempt to stimulate the economy. With his plan to buy $40 billion in securities per month, Bernanke has…

So it’s come to this. A former professor of economics turned central banker can keep policymakers and investors on the edge of their seats, waiting for his latest pronouncement. That tells us two things. First, in the near-term, the president and Congress are irrelevant, frozen in mutual antipathy…

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke now has two reasons to disappoint those who are hoping he will use his speech next week at the conclave of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to launch the good ship QE3. The first is that the economy continues to move ahead, albeit at a slower…

Slow, slower, and maybe even stop—that’s a quick summary of how Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke sees the U.S. economy. The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent last year, 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year, “and available indicators point to a still-smaller gain in…

Robert Shrum is hoping for an assist from Ben Bernanke. Perhaps, Shrum writes, the chairman will have the courage to pull a John Roberts, launch QE3, and keep a staggering economy sufficiently upright that "Obama may actually be able to run on a decidedly more upbeat path through the fall."

With the American economy still struggling to recover and its long-term structural strength in question, policymakers and politicians are focusing on the Federal Reserve. Republican congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, the vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, is proposing new legislation…

New York Times: "Pro-American Militia Members Die in Blast in Iraq"

It didn’t take long for the snark attack to begin among the Big Money crowd. Less than 24 hours after the Federal Reserve announced its latest easy-money plan to goose the flaccid U.S economy, investors were already deriding “Operation Twist” as “Operation Fail.” Almost everything that was supposed…

Phil Klein: "House investigators rip Solyndra execs"

“Don’t just do something, stand there,” President Ronald Reagan once advised his staff. Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke has decided that remains pretty good advice: In his Friday speech to the world’s central bankers assembled in Jackson Hole, he said that he will not use “the range of…

In the Washington Post, Camden Fine, president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, writes, “I was astounded this month when the Federal Reserve announced its intention to keep interest rates at zero percent for at least the next two years. I kept staring at that…

President Obama blames the recent turmoil in financial markets on floods in Japan and Republicans who won’t raise taxes. Republicans blame roiling markets on the president and Democrats who won’t cut spending. The Europeans blame short-sellers. Stock traders blame the problem variously on Standard…

A businessman and investor for whose judgment I have the highest regard sends this email about yesterday’s Fed announcement:

Judy Shelton makes the case in the new issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD for the “Gold Standard or Bust.” Sound finances, she points out, require sound money, and sound money, it turns out, seems to require a dollar as good as gold—i.e., a return to a gold standard. As she puts it, “monetary policy…

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg: "I have message to the person who attacked us and the people who are behind it: You're not going to destroy us. You're not destroying our democracy and our work for a better world. We're a small country but a very proud country. No one can bomb us to be…

The U.S. women's national team will advance to the finals of the women's World Cup.

Jennifer Rubin: "For Obama, it’s all about getting out of Afghanistan"

A press release from the Federal Reserve indicates "the economic recovery is continuing at a moderate pace, though somewhat more slowly than the Committee had expected." 

It’s easy to get caught up in the details of the political battle of the day over the nation’s economic and fiscal health—after all, that’s what we do in Washington. Unfortunately, many of our decision-makers and opinion leaders possess the skills required for political infighting in greater…

The only question now is whether the slowdown in the economy is what economists at the HSBC bank call “a speed bump” on the road to continued recovery, or the first step down the road to a double-dip recession. No less an expert than former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan answers, “I…

The weakening of the dollar since 2008 has added 56.5 cents to the price of gasoline, the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) has found. The average price of gasoline would be $3.40 per gallon, instead of the current average price nationally of nearly $4, if the dollar hadn’t declined.

In an important piece in today's Wall Street Journal, Lew Lehrman explains the connection between monetary and fiscal policy—fiscal policy will almost inevitably tend toward deficits and debt if the monetary authorities are (virtually) unconstrained in financing that debt. Until it all comes…

“Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?” asked Cole Porter in lyrics made famous by Frank Sinatra. That’s what policy analysts are asking about the sudden increase in the interest rates investors in U.S. government bonds are demanding, an increase only partly reversed at week’s end. One would have…

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke concedes that, while necessary, a new large purchase of government bonds by the Fed to help cover the deficit will not completely solve our problem of slow growth. Many in the markets and around the world express the same sentiment in a more negative way—saying this latest…

Enough of what President Nixon’s equally disgraced vice president, Spiro Agnew, called the “nattering nabobs of negativism.” This is Thanksgiving weekend, and we Americans, who have just combined to consume almost 50 million turkeys, have much to be thankful for, and reason for cheer. The political…

“Don’t worry, be happy,” songwriter Bobby McFerrin instructed. But that was in 1988, at the close of Ronald Reagan’s successful presidency. The unemployment rate, at 7.2 percent and rising when Reagan was sworn in, had fallen to 5.3 percent. The economy, which had been shrinking under Jimmy Carter,…

It didn't take long for the Federal Reserve to come under fire for its resumption of asset purchases, aka "QE2", announced at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on November 3. The decision had the unusual side effect of uniting Sarah Palin and World Bank president Robert Zoellick, the former…

This is a tale of two printing presses.

The Federal Reserve’s decision last week to initiate another round of quantitative easing has had its defenders and its critics. The Economist says that the Fed’s purchase of $600 billion worth of Treasury bonds is working to loosen up investment markets, while a Wall Street Journal editorial…

On November 2, voters gave Republicans historic gains in the House and above-average gains in the Senate in a vote for reduced spending, less intrusive government, and low taxes. On November 3, the Federal Reserve voted to resume direct purchases of Treasury securities in order to promote economic…

Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, is the only significant public official on record in opposition to the easy-money, zero-interest-rate monetary policy being pursued by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. So there were multiple layers of irony when Hoenig journeyed to…