the Federal Reserve Archives

Laboring On

By Econ70 | 12/10/2012

Last Friday’s mediocre employment report gives the Fed (meeting this week) ample reason to continue buying Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities at the rate of about $80 billion/month for the foreseeable future. As for the employment report, average hourly earnings rose only 1.7% over the past 12 months, while the CPI increased 2.2%! The workweek remained…

Money for Nothing

By Econ70 | 07/31/2012

On 7/5/12 the ECB reduced to zero the rate it pays banks that park excess reserves with it. The Fed is now considering following suit. There are $1.5 trillion of excess reserves at the Fed which if loaned, would help the economy. But the Fed won’t, as it will not increase lending much and would…

Inflation and Godot

By Econ70 | 07/19/2012

While many are nervous the massively stimulative monetary policy engineered by the Fed will inevitably trigger inflation, those folks are waiting for Godot. Subtracting the current yield on a 10-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) bond (-0.637%) from the current yield on a regular 10-year Treasury bond (1.52%) gets us 2.157%. This means headline inflation…