Asked to define a recession, you can give the mechanical answer. It is 2 or more adjacent quarters of a real GDP decline. So, if Q1 GDP grows by 3%, Q2 by 2% and then Q3 by 1%, is that…
What We Should Know About Monetary Policy
Having heard Janet Yellen’s press conference yesterday, I learned that the Federal Reserve expects that the economy will improve, their bond buying will diminish and, during the foreseeable future, interest rates will start to ascend. And yes, she spoke about unemployment and…
The Monetary Policy Mistakes of a Babysitting Co-op
There once was a French economist whose name was Say. Proclaiming that “Supply Creates Its Own Demand,” Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) entered economic history with Say’s Law. All he meant was that workers are also consumers. The money you receive for producing a good or a service…
Handy Banking Quotes
Car buyers typically display decision fatigue when asked to choose among “4 styles of gearshift knobs, 13 kinds of wheel rims, 25 configurations of the engine and gearbox and a palette of 56 colors for the interior.” Too worn out…
Humor in Fed Transcripts
Below, just a reminder of one piece of the Great Recession before looking at the Fed transcripts. Lehman Brothers is the orange line. With a typical 5-year lag, the transcripts of the 2008 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings…