An excellent new book from Edward Chancellor, The Price of Time, sets out to explain both the theory and history of interest rates across five millennia and countless cultures. The theory is frequently bungled by economists; the history is frequently glossed over by historians. But thankfully Mr. Chancellor is up to the task. He is an excellent and engaging writer, owing presumably to his long career as a financial journalist.
Who would believe we have made it this far?
6 months of official Quantitative Tightening (QT) has passed. The Fed has been doing what they said they would do (i.e., their actions, not results).
The asset reduction for the month of November was almost $80 billion. From Nov. 2 – 30, the US Treasury (UST) balance decreased by roughly $60 billion and Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS) balance decreased by roughly $20 billion.
December 16, 2022, is the fifteenth anniversary of the modern Tea Party. That fact will come as a surprise to many readers who take the mainstream narrative about the Tea Party at face value. The mainstream account begins on February 19, 2009, when Rick Santelli, live on CNBC from the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), declared a rebellion against “socialism” one month into the Obama administration.
The Supreme Court of the United States will hear plaintiff and defendant oral arguments for Biden v. Nebraska in February 2023. That case will determine whether the Biden administration has the constitutional authority to forgive student loan debt and thereby make taxpayers responsible for the debts that students have incurred.
Sometimes you encounter a proposal that is so daft that you think to yourself, “The author can’t be serious!” In today’s column, I’d like to discuss an example of this sort that comes from one of the world’s most eminent moral philosophers, Martha C. Nussbaum. In her article, “A Peopled Wilderness,” appearing in the New York Review of Books, December 8, 2022, Nussbaum suggests that we need to think seriously about curbing predation in nature.
First, they came for the oil, now they’re coming for the cows.
Price inflation in the United States remains stubbornly high, with October’s print at 7.7 percent. The Fed’s preferred measure, so-called core inflation is only two-tenths of a percent below forty-year highs, at 6.3 percent. Yet, it was just last year that the Federal reserve and other “experts” were concerned that inflation wasn’t high enough.
