This week, the US Federal Reserve raised the target for its key rate — the Federal Funds Rate — to 1.5 percent. That’s the highest its been since 2008, although well below 5.25 percent rate reached during the last expansion. Europe, however, has signaled it has no plans to follow the US in moving key rates upward.
Many Mises.org readers know that Lew Rockwell, founder of the Mises Institute and quiet benefactor to countless individuals in libertarian circles over the decades, continues to recover from a recent back injury. While the episode has not quelled his enthusiasm for liberty, recovery is no picnic.
The Trump administration recently announced it was considering a partial reversal of the Obama administration’s designation of new national monument lands in Utah. The lands in question were already federal lands, but Obama’s move heightened restrictions on the usage of the land, and lessened the likelihood the lands would ever be transferred to state control.
Congratulations to former Mises Research Fellow Karl-Friedrich Israel for successfully defending his thesis at the University of Angers in France.
Dr. Israel’s academic research has largely focused on monetary policy, monetary theory, and the history of macroeconomics.
The Miami Herald reports that a local couple is going all the way to the state supreme court to fight a local ordinance banning front-yard vegetable gardens:
Hermine Ricketts and her husband Tom Carroll may grow fruit trees and flowers in the front yard of their Miami Shores house...
Vegetables, however, are not allowed.
If you’ve been shopping for real estate or stocks lately, you might be wondering how the Fed gets away with all that talk about how inflation is “low,” “muted,” or “below expectations.”
One of the more contentious aspects of the tax reform bill currently going through Congress is a proposal to treat the value of graduate-student tuition waivers as taxable income. In the US most PhD programs charge tuition, like undergraduate programs, but PhD students are typically granted a waiver of tuition along with a modest stipend to cover living expenses. In the early versions of the tax bill, the value of this waiver -- which could be $50,000 to $60,000 at a private university -- would be classified as taxable income.
Today Janet Yellen announced that the Federal Reserve is following through with its planned third rate, moving the effective federal funds rate to 1.25-1.5%. This move was widely expected, and considered to be “priced in”. As I noted in October, one of the most surprising winners of Trump’s presidency has been Yellen.
The Summer 2017 issue of the QJAE is now online. (Here are the full archives.)
Volume 20, no. 2 (Summer 2017)
Articles:
Deflation and Economic Growth: The Great Depression as the Great Outlier by Pavel Ryska
