Economy News

from AIER

Established 1999

New England, USA

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    “How the Market Creates Jobs, and the Government Destroys Them”

    “By bringing about the business cycle, Federal Reserve money creation causes unemployment. Inflation not only raises prices, it also misallocates labor. During the boom phase of the trade cycle, businesses hire new workers, many of whom are pulled from other lines of work by the higher wages. The Fed subsidy to these capital industries lasts…

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    “Nationalization of the Morgage Market”

    “On Sunday, September 7, the United States government took control of more than half the U.S. mortgage market, through its seizure—and that is the word used in mainstream press accounts—of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two colossal government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), hybrid organizations owned by private individuals yet created by the government. The likes of this…

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    “Fed May Reemerge as Bigger Buyer With Resumption of Treasury Purchases”

    “The Federal Reserve will likely reemerge as the biggest buyer of Treasuries when it resumes purchasing U.S. government securities today to prevent money from draining out of the financial system. JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists estimate the Fed will buy about $284 billion in Treasuries over the next year, or more than the combined purchases…

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    The Fed Can’t Solve Our Economic Woes

    A policy of low interest rates is a textbook response of monetary authorities to the economic weakness brought on by deficient aggregate demand. The policy is justified by pointing to various ways in which money can promote economic activity—including by stimulating investment, discouraging savings, encouraging consumption spending, and allowing individuals to lower their debt burdens…

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    “Treasury Fixing Mortgage-Finance System Juggles Limitless Bailout, Economy”

    “The U.S. Treasury Department, hosting a summit tomorrow on how to repair the mortgage-finance system, may get a blunt message from stakeholders in an industry tied to 15 percent of the country’s economy: Don’t screw it up. The system’s size and complexity mean that a wrong move by the Obama administration could restrict credit, drive…

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    “In a Sluggish Economic Summer, No Easy Fix Ahead”

    “Typically, the Fed can lower interest rates to encourage Americans to borrow money and spend it, invigorating the economy. But the benchmark interest rate controlled by the Fed has been almost zero for more than a year now. The Fed this week took a new step by announcing it would use the proceeds from its…

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    “Fed Official Warns of Starting a Cycle of Boom and Bust”

    “In a sharply worded dissent to the Federal Reserve’s decision to help ease the supply of credit to the economy, a member of the Fed committee that sets interest rates said Friday that the central bank’s monetary strategy could backfire and touch off a new boom-and-bust cycle. The member, Thomas M. Hoenig, the president of…

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    Idle Resources Don’t Eliminate Inflation

    One of the gravest sins of modern economics is its tendency to treat resources, both capital and labor, as essentially homogenous aggregates. Capital is more or less interchangeable with other capital, and labor is treated much the same. One reason for this is that such homogeneity and aggregation make mathematical modeling much more tractable, as…

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    The immorality of today’s monetary policy

    I have been reading Buying at the Point of Maximum Pessimism (FT Press, 2010), by Scott Phillips. Before introducing his “six value investment trends” he devotes close to 100 pages to describe what went wrong in the US economy. When he addresses current inflationary policies, he states “Technology is amazing: a policy maker’s ability to…

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    Europe Jumps Off the Keynesian Bus — WSJ

    By ALLAN H. MELTZER — President Obama is the victim of bad advice and misinformation. From his advisers, the Democratic caucus and the New York Times, he hears that markets have failed and the country needs more government spending to increase consumer spending. He is told that any plan to reduce government spending and the…