The Fed

Two days before Christmas, 1913, the infamous "creature from Jekyll Island," the Federal Reserve System, was birthed into our body politic. It has been devouring the economy ever since.

Wall Street has convinced itself that the Fed will soon engineer a "soft landing" by bringing down inflation without an accompanying recession. They need to rethink their beliefs.

Central bankers follow inflation "target" in their pursuit of "price stability." Not surprisingly, they usually miss their targets -- quite badly -- and we now are living one of those moments.

Bob and Jeff make their provocative 2023 predictions for the economy, the Fed, politics, world events, and cultural issues.

Only Father Time helps us cut through the policy nonsense and understand interest rates conceptually.

Where did this thing called the Fed come from? This essay reads like a detective story. The Fed did not originate as a policy response to national need. It was founded by two groups of elites: government officials and large financial and banking interests. And professional economists.

You don't want to miss Jeff's unvarnished thoughts on the Left, the Right, the economy, and what is sure to be a turbulent New Year.

Investors should not care whether the Fed pivots or not if they analyze investment opportunities based on fundamentals and not on monetary laughing gas.

John Maynard Keynes derided gold-based money as a "barbarous relic," yet it was gold that enabled a long regime of honest money -- and the advance of civilization.

Wall Street has convinced itself that the Fed will soon engineer a "soft landing" by bringing down inflation without an accompanying recession. They need to rethink their beliefs.