Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The 0.5% Reduction of the Federal Funds Rate

“The Fed Makes a Large Rate Cut and Forecasts More to Come” Jeanna Smialak Writes “The Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Wednesday by half a percentage point, an unusually large move and a clear signal that central bankers think they are winning their war against inflation and are turning their attention to protecting the […]

Inflation Data Gives a ‘Bright Green Light’ for a Fed Rate Cut

We have been playing brinksmanship the last 30 days as to when it is a good time to reduce the Fed Rate taking your foot off the bake so to speak. If you read New Deal democrat’s latest report . . . “The monthly personal income and spending report is now the most important report […]

Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady (as it goes?)

Interest Rate increases to fight perceived inflation or not fight perceived inflation? Big believer in the cause of much of the inflation being deliberate supply chain planning to increase prices. Have not seen a deliberate price increase yet which will fix a supply chain. Poor or deliberate planning creating issues, a lack of knowledge on […]

McClatchy: Fed Interest Earnings Approach $100 Billion

Fed’s interest earnings approach $100b WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Friday it transferred a record $96.9 billion to the U.S. treasury in 2014, profits on its unprecedented $4.4 trillion in holdings designed to support the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Returning to a topic I have raised a few times […]

Adding to Steve’s quest to define “money”. A couple short films.

Via Digby comes a couple short films talking about what is money.   They are part of an effort by a group/site called We The Economy that has 20 short films aimed:  to drive awareness and establish a better understanding of the U.S. economy. Told through animation, comedy, musical, non-fiction, and scripted films, WE THE ECONOMY […]

Anyone got a number? For ‘Real Debt Service of Public Debt as % of GDP’

And this is an honest question, one that I have been poking around in but maybe don’t have the chops to answer. Lets take three measures of Public Debt: One nominal. Public Debt as of the 16th was $17.899 trillion. And rising. Two as percentage of GDP. And BTW the preferred measure of deficit fetishists […]

How the Fed Cornered the Long Bond

Fed Treasury Holdings 5-7-2014 The above link should take you to a PDF showing the Fed’s System Open Market Accounts holdings of Treasury Bonds and Notes which the second link will tell you comprise $2.224 trillion of the total $4.017 trillion of SOMA Holdings, with that total including $1.631 trillion of Fannie and Freddie Mac […]

U.S. Federal Intergenerational Debt: Rendered and Layered

It is a common trope among Austerians that the U.S. is passing on unsustainable debt to our children and grandchildren. And certainly there are some scary numbers out there, for example “$17.4 trillion!!” A very real number. But maybe it would be useful to render that number down so as to calculate real incidence of […]

Fed Treasury Holdings, ‘Real Debt’ and ‘Real Debt Service’

It is not difficult to determine a dollar figure for Total U.S. Public Debt. In fact you have to round UP from the Treasury’s Debt to the Penny and Who Holds it web application which tracks that number daily. As of end of business Thursday that total was $17,472,051,696,926.14. Which is a lot of money […]

Release of transcripts of 2007 Fed meetings

A note from Wonkblog For anybody who cares about how the country ended up in this precarious economic state, a very big day is coming soon, as information that has been under lock and key for the past five years will be shared with the world.  The Federal Reserve keeps transcripts of its meetings to […]