The Gold Standard  

The decision of the Federal Reserve Board (this is not the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee that decides on monetary policy) to increase the discount rate (it calls it the ‘primary credit rate’) by 25 basis points to 0.75% and to reduce the maximum maturity of the borrowing at the discount window to just a [...]

Chairman Bernanke was confirmed for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve with a vote of 70-30 in the Senate. It does not matter that, in standard democratic parlance, this was a comfortable victory. In the context of the post, 30 dissenting votes could be 30 too many. Chairman Bernanke’s speech at the [...]

President Obama has ended the suspense on the re-appointment of Bernanke. Subject to Congressional hearings and approval, Bernanke looks set for a second term as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. The President cited his temperament as one of his strengths. Perhaps, there is something to that. But, as for his judgement, reading Stephen Roach’s [...]

To fully understand, interpret and even judge Mr. Bernanke’s tone of ‘quiet satisfaction’ with obligatory reference to ‘pending challenges’, you should read this very well-written and crisp piece by Prof. Barry Eichengreen. Nice parting shot:
Too bad that there was not a better way of learning sympathy for Japan than by emulating its example. [More here].
Talking [...]

Two commentators weigh in on the perils of high frequency trading. Both are well worth a read. Separately, Floyd Norris, a perceptive commentator, writes an interesting piece in New York Times.  He says that Wall Street compensation is not to be blamed for the crisis. This, according to him, was the problem:
Bankers and regulators believed [...]

The Fed Beige book is a qualitative survey on economic conditions and is presented two weeks before the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets to decide on monetary policy. The latest one does not need interpretation. The first line of the summary says it all:

Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks indicate that economic conditions remained [...]

Some have chosen to focus on the fact that some students in the University where Mr. Geithner made a presentation chose to laugh when he said that America would maintain the value of the dollar. See here for example.
The real issues are covered by Simon Johnson at Baseline Scenario. See his posts here and here.
This push by [...]

The dessert – the Fed chairman
 The Gold Standard (TGS) does not believe that history repeats itself exactly, much less, economic history. So, TGS won’t bet on Japan’s deflationary outcome being repeated in the U.S. even though in many other respects, the US has taken many leaves out of Japan’s book.
That said, premature paeans are being [...]

My good friend Nitin Pai pointed me in the direction of the blog of Daniel Drezner for a different reason. That should wait. In the meantime, I found this response of his to a column by Fareed Zakaria rather good. I do not wish to spoil the pleasure by adding my own comments. He has said [...]

Prof. Allan Meltzer writes about the inflation risk in the US., in the medium-term. I agree with him. He points to the GDP deflator rise of 2.9%. Perhaps, I would look at PCE (incl. food and energy) deflator. Here is the link for PCE deflators. Most of them, with the exception of PCE core deflator, [...]