Tag Archives: Great Recession

The Fed On The Road To Nowhere

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Economic policymakers may have us, as the Talking Heads put it in their 1985 hit, on the road to nowhere. [Credit: qednet.biz]

Eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy­mak­ers may have us, as the Talk­ing Heads put it in their 1985 hit, on the road to nowhere. [Cred­it: qednet.biz]

For­mer Fed­er­al Reserve Chair­man Ben Bernanke has been called the man who saved the world.  His extra­or­di­nary inter­ven­tions in the fall of 2008 have almost uni­ver­sal­ly been rec­og­nized as hav­ing pre­vent­ed a sec­ond Great Depression.

But a new study by the Swiss-based Bank for Inter­na­tion­al Set­tle­ments (BIS) sug­gests that Bernanke saved the world from a cri­sis that was at least part­ly of his own mak­ing.  Worse, it argues that the course he set and that his suc­ces­sor Janet Yellen and oth­er cen­tral banks are fol­low­ing will pro­duce anoth­er and per­haps graver crisis.

Gov­ern­ment mon­e­tary and fis­cal pol­i­cy­mak­ers have lost their way, the BIS argues.  So bad­ly that they don’t just need a new direc­tion.  They need a new compass.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

America’s Shrinking Workforce

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Unemployment officeAmer­i­ca had a bad week. We once again were remind­ed that ter­ror­ism rep­re­sents a con­tin­u­ing threat, that indi­vid­u­als poi­soned by hate­ful ide­ol­o­gy can inflict great harm. We were also remind­ed that we are capa­ble of respond­ing to these bru­tal acts, as Pres­i­dent Oba­ma said, “Self­less­ly. Com­pas­sion­ate­ly. And unafraid.”

Ter­ror­ism presents a chal­lenge to which we’ve yet to for­mu­late a durable response. We remain vul­ner­a­ble, despite the government’s con­tin­ued efforts to keep us safe.

There is anoth­er prob­lem, less hor­rif­ic in its imme­di­ate effects but no less intractable, that also is get­ting the bet­ter of us: the prob­lem of job­less­ness. Con­tin­ue read­ing →