How Does a Helicopter Drop $4 Trillion?

When the Federal Reserve’s three basic monetary policy tools did not work, it created quantitative easing to up economic growth and decrease unemployment.

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…

One Reason That Quitting is Good

I have read that Fed Chair Janet Yellen is particularly interested in JOLTS. Representing Job Openings and Labor market Turnover Survey, JOLTS data tell an interesting story. You can see how the trend in job openings parallels the Great Recession…

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…

Connecting Abigail Adams to Janet Yellen

Reading about “touch generations” in Sam Arbesman’s Wired Magazine blog, I realized that Abigail Adams and Janet Yellen were connected. Different generations touch when one’s birth year coincides with someone else’s death. Born in 1744, Abigail Adams died in 1818, the year that Karl Marx was…