1,682 days and all's well

1,682 days and all's well

| business cycle, charts, Federal Reserve, gold, Great Depression, Milton Friedman, quantitative easing, sterilization, stock market and equities, zero lower bound

1,682 is the number of days that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has spent rising since hitting rock bottom back in March 6, 2009. It also ...

Rates or quantitites or both

Rates or quantitites or both

| Bank of Canada, convenience yield, Federal Reserve, hot potato effect, Nick Rowe, open market operations, Steve Waldman

Roaming around the econ blogosphere, I often come across what seems to be a sharp divide between those who think monetary policy is all abou...

Could Bitcoin kill Fed monetary policy?

Could Bitcoin kill Fed monetary policy?

| bitcoin, cash, Federal Reserve, medium of exchange, Michael Woodford, unit of account

While bitcoin could one day kill most of the roles that the Fed plays, monetary policy will probably stay intact. The reason for this, as I...

The fed funds rate was never the Fed's actual policy lever

The fed funds rate was never the Fed's actual policy lever

| convenience yield, federal funds rate, Federal Reserve, market monetarism, moneyness, Nick Rowe, nominal interest rates

The lever on which a central bank pushes or pulls in order to keep its target variable (say inflation) on track is commonly referred to as t...

Google as monetary superpower — a parable

Google as monetary superpower — a parable

| Federal Reserve, hot potato effect, liquidity premium, moneyness, nominal interest rates, open market operations, quantitative easing, quantity theory of money, stock market and equities

In trying to understand how modern monetary policy works, I find it useful to create parables, or alternate monetary worlds, and put them th...