On Wednesday, November 2, 2022, the Fed raised the target for the policy rate by 0.75 percent, to 4.00 percent, for the fourth time in a row. Fed chairman Jerome Powell hinted that the policy rate target is likely to be lifted further ahead. For most economists and commentators, the Fed’s monetary policy is the heart of the interest rate determination process.

The Federal Reserve is on pace to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion over the next year to eighteen months, as the yield on its portfolio of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities is now being surpassed by the interest it pays banks to hold reserves in their accounts at the Federal Reserve (this practice began in response to the 2007–08 financial crisis as an enhanced means of controlling liquidity).

When voters who haven’t already voted go to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots it will be with the Senate very much in play and Democrats needing a miracle to prevent a Republican takeover of the House. 

It’s an even year in November, so we know what that means.

Tuesday’s election is rolling around and aside from the plague of attack ads on your television screen, oodles of political spam mail and yard signs, it’s time for everyone to start telling you how important it is to “get out and go vote.”

I remember these people in college. They’d spend all day on the concourse passing out t-shirts and obnoxiously screeching out of a megaphone at innocent pedestrians trying to avoid being late for class.

Commentaries about World War I frequently discuss causes and consequences but almost never mention the enablers. At best, they might mention them approvingly, as if we were fortunate to have had the Fed and the income tax, along with the ingenuity of the liberty bond programs, to finance our glorious role in that bloodbath.

In studies of populism published in the last six years, be they book length or short articles, you are almost definitely going to come across a mention of President Donald Trump. Seen as the archetypal populist, Trump’s behaviours in and out of office have become so influential on the studies of populism that you simply can’t escape him when discussing it.

In another sign of weakness for the job market, the total number of employed persons in the United States fell, month over month, in October. That’s the third time in the last seven months this total has fallen, dropping to approximately 158 million.

According to new employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, the current population survey shows 328,000 fewer people were employed in October than in September, seasonally adjusted.

When I was a child, my mother and I would take the Long Island Railroad to Brooklyn to see relatives a few times a year. My grandfather was always outside in front of the apartment house in Park Slope, where he and my aunts and uncles lived. Upon seeing him, I would run down the sidewalk to greet him, but before I could say “Hi, Grandpa!,” he would without fail press a shiny silver dollar into my hand.