Federal Reserve

Judy Shelton makes the case in the new issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD for the “Gold Standard or Bust.” Sound finances, she points out, require sound money, and sound money, it turns out, seems to require a dollar as good as gold—i.e., a return to a gold standard.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg: "I have message to the person who attacked us and the people who are behind it: You're not going to destroy us. You're not destroying our democracy and our work for a better world. We're a small country but a very proud country. No one can bomb us to be quiet. No one can shoot us to be quiet. No one can ever scare us from being Norway."

Jennifer Rubin: "For Obama, it’s all about getting out of Afghanistan"

We must repeal the Obamacare plan for Medicare says... Dick Gephardt?

Well, that's reassuring -- Bernanke is clueless.

A press release from the Federal Reserve indicates "the economic recovery is continuing at a moderate pace, though somewhat more slowly than the Committee had expected." 

The only question now is whether the slowdown in the economy is what economists at the HSBC bank call “a speed bump” on the road to continued recovery, or the first step down the road to a double-dip recession. No less an expert than former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan answers, “I don’t know” when asked whether it’s speed bump or double dip.

The weakening of the dollar since 2008 has added 56.5 cents to the price of gasoline, the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) has found. The average price of gasoline would be $3.40 per gallon, instead of the current average price nationally of nearly $4, if the dollar hadn’t declined.

In an important piece in today's Wall Street Journal, Lew Lehrman explains the connection between monetary and fiscal policy—fiscal policy will almost inevitably tend toward deficits and debt if the monetary authorities are (virtually) unconstrained in financing that debt.

“Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?” asked Cole Porter in lyrics made famous by Frank Sinatra.

Enough of what President Nixon’s equally disgraced vice president, Spiro Agnew, called the “nattering nabobs of negativism.” This is Thanksgiving weekend, and we Americans, who have just combined to consume almost 50 million turkeys, have much to be thankful for, and reason for cheer.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke concedes that, while necessary, a new large purchase of government bonds by the Fed to help cover the deficit will not completely solve our problem of slow growth. Many in the markets and around the world express the same sentiment in a more negative way—saying this latest round of “quantitative easing” won’t work.

“Don’t worry, be happy,” songwriter Bobby McFerrin instructed. But that was in 1988, at the close of Ronald Reagan’s successful presidency.

It didn't take long for the Federal Reserve to come under fire for its resumption of asset purchases, aka "QE2", announced at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on November 3.