The Fed and Treasury

Will Trump Try to ‘Overrule’ Monetary Policy?

By Mark Thoma

How will the Federal Reserve evolve during Donald Trump’s term as president? Presently, three of the seven positions on the Federal Reserve Board are vacant. These vacancies, along with the...
Why the Treasury Is Ending a Low-Income Retirement Saving Program

By Beth Braverman

Less than two years after the Obama administration rolled out a myRA, a savings program aimed at helping the millions of Americans without access to a retirement account through work, the Trump...
Will Janet Yellen Give Wall Street a Scare?

By Anthony Mirhaydari

For years, the Federal Reserve has been unable to convince the market it's serious about aggressively tightening policy. Janet Yellen and her cohorts have been guilty of "crying wolf," constantly...
Is the Fed About to Wage War on the Rich?

By Anthony Mirhaydari

For years, stocks have been driven relentlessly higher thanks to a single statement that summarized the aggressive central bank largesse since the eurozone crisis flared up in 2012: Policymakers...
Is the Fed Fighting the Trump Rally?

By Anthony Mirhaydari

The evidence is growing that the Federal Reserve’s policymakers are actively working to lean against the stock market's rise, a dramatic reversal from the years of policy support stock market bulls...

The Fed’s Big Mistake: Rate Hikes Hurt US Workers

By David Dayen

Protesters rallied in Washington, New York City and Philadelphia yesterday against an imminent government action that would damage the financial prospects of ordinary workers. And no, it had nothing...
The Fed, the Reality of Tax Cuts, and Donald Trump

By Mark Thoma

For many years, Republicans argued that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves. Cutting taxes on the wealthy, according to Republicans, allows them to keep a larger share of anything new they...
Will Unwinding the Fed’s $4.5 Trillion Balance Sheet Kill the Bull Market?

By Anthony Mirhaydari

Over the last decade, investors have grown accustomed to a Federal Reserve that constantly coddled them, allayed their fears and did everything possible to support the financial markets and asset...
The Key to This Market: Here’s What Will Determine if Stocks Rise or Fall

By Anthony Mirhaydari

For now, instead of putting pressure on risk assets, the Fed's newfound hawkishness is bolstering the reflation trade by lifting the dollar higher and attracting global capital into U.S. assets. Same...
Can Wall Street Handle Higher Interest Rates?

By Anthony Mirhaydari

The Federal Reserve just raised interest rates for the second time in three months, signaling a dramatic quickening of its prior pace. For the first time in more than a decade, Fed policymakers are...

Big ECB Asset Purchases Could Ding U.S. Growth

By Rob Garver

Just as the Federal Reserve is getting ready to ease off the accelerator and start raising interest rates, an ongoing economic slowdown in Europe has European Central Bank officials promising to pump...
Pentagon Didn’t Report $145 Million in Improper Payments

By Brianna Ehley, The Fiscal Times

The Pentagon’s watchdog is flagging the behemoth agency for severely underestimating how much money it lost in improper payments in the military health benefits program for 2013. Under federal law,...
Jobs 2014: The Year of Exceeding (Low) Expectations

By Rob Garver

The Friday jobs report confirmed that 2014 had been the best year for the U.S. economy in recent memory. Unfortunately, that’s not saying a whole lot
Budding Pot Industry Has Trouble Stashing Its Cash

By Jeffrey Stinson, Stateline

The nation’s rapidly expanding legal marijuana industry, which operates in 23 states and the District of Columbia, enters a new year facing a multibillion-dollar question: What to do with all the...
What Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein Get Wrong About TARP

By David Dayen

There’s an old saying that history is written by the winners. As we get further and further away from the financial crisis, we’re seeing that adage play out with disturbing frequency. Opinion-leading...

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