Joe Biden made his intentions pretty clear during his campaign in 2020 when in an interview on monetary policy, he said that the famous monetarist Milton Friedman “isn’t running the show anymore”.  And, given the signals President Biden is sending with his appointments to the Federal Reserve Board and other financial management agencies, the job […]

It would seem that the Federal Reserve has enough on its plate given the dual mandate in place for over 40 years when Congress amended the Federal Reserve Act by directing the Fed to “maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so […]

The President had in mind two bold and imaginative prospects for appointment to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Herman Cain and Stephen Moore would have been exciting opportunities for different reasons, and both would have added much-needed diversity of thought and dynamism to the development of monetary policy. Herman Cain talked and wrote about […]

David Malpass, a research and consulting economist, is a former Treasury Department official under Ronald Reagan and a former State Department official under George H. W. Bush.  In a recent hearing before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, he delivered a devastating and valuable critique of Federal Reserve policy over the past seven […]

Unfortunately, the country hasn’t yet had what it needs in the transition from Ben Bernanke to Janet Yellen as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which is an in-depth discussion of monetary policy priorities.  It’s not too late, however, and timely as this leadership transition takes place.  Ms. Yellen is no doubt a distinguished economist, but […]

Monetary policy continues in disarray and the Federal Reserve continues to act as though it can micromanage the economy by fine-tuning interest rates.  Following its October announcement that it expects to keep rates low until at least 2015, it recently announced adoption of a policy that it will not increase interest rates until unemployment falls […]

A chorus of pundits, experts, and opinion pieces is growing around the need for a completely overhauled monetary and fiscal policy infrastructure for the country, and I say that we cannot move too fast to get about it. Five senior fellows at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, including former cabinet level government officials involved in fiscal […]

As a retired banker and one who struggled mightily through the Texas banking debacle of the mid-1980s, the current debate over the “too big to fail” problem resonates with me.  I served as CEO of a sizable banking organization, but one that was not considered too big to fail, and I watched other banks that […]

A couple of years ago, I wrote a brief review of a very good book, Econoclasts, by Brian Domitrovic, a professor of economics at Sam Houston State University.  The book outlines the formulation, rationale, and history of the application of supply-side economic theory, with emphasis on the people who sparked the supply-side revolution beginning in […]

Congressman Barney Frank has another flawed idea–somehow he thinks that the Federal Reserve has too much independence from political guidance, so he has a plan to reduce the representation of the regional Fed bank presidents on the central bank policy board and replace them with political appointees.  We have enough problems with monetary policy as […]