Category Archives: fiscal and monetary policy

The WSJ’s Sarah Lueck seems to say today that the idea of taxing carried interest – forcing private-equity honchos and hedge-fund managers to pay income tax on their income – is back. Two new taxes targeted at hedge-fund managers are … Continue reading →

Tim Duy has another astute FedWatch today, chez Thoma, in which he reiterates that although it’s a close-run thing, he reckons the Fed will stand pat at its next meeting, essentially riding on the bigger-than-expected rate cut in September. On … Continue reading →

The annoyingly anonymous WSJ economics blog (one assumes it’s Greg Ip, but can never be sure) talked to Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker yesterday, and asked him about this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. In response, he made an interesting … Continue reading →

One of the reasons that the markets loved the Greenspan Fed was that it was generally very predictable: for all that Greenspan was an expert at mumbling incomprehensibly, the markets never seemed to be in much doubt what he would … Continue reading →

It’s the Inflation Wars! Barry Ritholtz and Dan Gross and John Wasik and Johnny Debacle and dozens of others are elbowing each other out of the way to proclaim from the rooftops that we have a Serious Inflation Problem and … Continue reading →

Now here’s an interesting development in the Greenspan Wars. Brad DeLong, Greenspan’s apologist-in-chief, spends 884 words essentially saying "well, it’s not Greenspan’s fault he’s a political hack". Since Paul Krugman’s chief complaint about Greenspan is that he (Greenspan) turned out … Continue reading →

The penguin nails it.

The rules of being Fed chairman are simple. When you cut rates you make everybody happy, and when you raise rates you make people unhappy. Your job, of course, isn’t to make people happy, it’s to steer the economy. But … Continue reading →

Jon Stewart last night proved himself a master of the smart and tough question, when Alan Greenspan came onto his show to plug his book in the wake of the Fed’s 50bp rate cut. Stewart put two big questions to … Continue reading →

It’s 50bp, and it’s unanimous! So much for prediction markets. The half-point gap between the funds rate and the discount rate remains, but with the discount rate now at 5.25%, it’s definitely more attractive to banks facing liquidity problems. The … Continue reading →

OK, no more Greenspan blogging, I hope. Instead – rate cut blogging! Obviously I have no idea what the Fed will do this afternoon, or even really what it should do. But my gut feeling is that Bernanke should announce … Continue reading →

I apologize for yet more Greenspan blogging, but today is after all the day his book is officially released, and there’s loads of material out there worth linking to. Paul Krugman is on good form, attacking Greenspan’s support for Bush’s … Continue reading →

After defending Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy, Brad DeLong now steps up to the plate to defend his notorious 2001 testimony in favor of the Bush Administration’s sweeping tax cuts. If you actually read the testimony, he says, it’s full of … Continue reading →

"If you want to blame the subprime crisis on loose monetary policy from the years of the dot.com bubble burst, you have some explaining to do," says Tyler Cowen, who may or may not be talking about John Cassidy. Brad … Continue reading →

The WSJ has got its hands on Alan Greenspan’s new book, and it certainly sounds like he’s more interested in making excuses and pointing fingers than he is in taking responsibility for the consequences of his actions. The Republicans "deserved … Continue reading →

Just before I went on holiday on August, I offered up a cheeky chart of the Fed funds rate, suggesting that the Fed had stealthily cut rates between meetings. (This was before it actually cut the discount rate.) Greg Mankiw … Continue reading →

Monetary policy, at heart, is largely about confidence. Yes, the main tool that a central bank has at its disposal is the level of overnight interest rates, but the level of overnight interest rates, in and of itself, has relatively … Continue reading →

John Cassidy rightly eviscerates Alan Greenspan in the October issue of Portfolio. Cassidy concentrates on Greenspan’s role in inflating the credit bubble which is currently bursting: "For a Fed chairman to have one speculative bubble inflate during his tenure is … Continue reading →