If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Let's be clear: There's nothing wrong with high-risk trading, but if the bets go bad, only the people who made the bets should have to pay. This sort of gambling should happen in hedge funds, not in the federally-insured banks that families and small businesses depend on.
We not only need to rein the banks in but we've got to delegate the responsibility for measuring household wealth -- and hopefully come up with ways to boost it -- to an agency that's more in touch with "the 99%."
Paul Krugman's book is called End This Depression Now! (exclamation point included). If that sounds like a self-help book -- the sequel to Listening to Prozac, maybe, or something by Dr. Wayne Dyer -- that's not altogether inappropriate in this age of collective near-despair.
President Obama wants to remove tax incentives for companies who takes jobs abroad and reward those who bring them back home. But will a different tax tactic do the trick?
In arguing the case for the primacy of economic action, Krugman blithely ignores the difficult situation of central banking in the modern world.
Should Socialist Francois Hollande be elected president of France in the runoff election on May 6, that will help create an antidote to the austerity politics that are dominating Europe.
Chairman Burns' stonewalling to keep the Fed from being caught in the Watergate scandal was extreme undue political interference. Inspector General Mark Bialek's report bypasses this information that was made available to him.
Recent vilification of the Fed and claims that a gold standard can solve U.S. economic problems are without empirical foundation.
With a little creativity and cooperation, REOs can become a driving force in neighborhood stabilization. Homeowners cannot afford for banks and regulators to miss another opportunity like this.
Does Ben Bernanke deserve the accolade bestowed in the April Atlantic magazine cover profile, "The Hero?" Not entirely. But if you look at Bernanke over the past ten years, what you see more than anything else is a learning curve on matters of regulation.
It's said that no Wall Street leader, no economist, no legislative committee, no regulator, could predict the perfect storm of all investment assets collapsing at the same time in 2008. I beg to differ.
Even the farsighted Founding Fathers could not have foreseen this -- the Fed is now on Twitter! Just think of the possibilities -- one fine Friday any Fed functionary could foment a world crisis in 140 characters or less! It could be as simple as a typo.
He, like most central bankers around the globe, persists in conflating inflation with growth. The sad truth is that our Federal Reserve believes growth can be engendered from creating more inflation.
A series of inaccurate forecasts could make people doubt the ability of the FOMC. Opinions on the new reporting detail will vary, but ultimately the verdict may lay in the hands of whoever eventually succeeds Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman.
The Fed bought securities that pay interest. After deducting its expenses the Fed sends the remainder to the Treasury to reduce the deficit. This intergovernmental transfer is an accounting gimmick and has no economic effect.
While an undergraduate at Harvard in the late sixties, I lived in an student house that achieved a reputation as a hotbed of radical activity during t...
