Tim Fernholz

According to the Federal Reserve Board’s self-published guide to the Federal Reserve, the first duty of the central bank is “conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” This morning, I was watching a panel at […]

I asked a Democratic operative the other day what to make of the latest generic ballot polls, which show Democrats gaining ground they had lost to Republicans over the summer — this poll average has the GOP only up about 1.9 points. A good sign? It’s hard to say, he replied, because no one knows […]

In the spring, I took a lighthearted look at the political chaos caused by the “Flash Crash,” which at the time no one could understand. Now the relevant regulators have come forward with an answer that shouldn’t surprise, since it comes as a combination of my two favored theories: A single mutual fund executed an […]

Ryan Lizza’s narrative of the climate bill’s life and death is a superb picture of Washington at work: Sen. John McCain is petulant and politically expedient, Republicans are vulnerable to extreme conservatives in their districts, Sen. John Kerry is diligent but unlucky. And, of course, the White House’s usual opening gambit of making concessions before […]

Raj Date, a veteran of the financial sector who founded and led the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, will be joining the Treasury Department shortly as a senior adviser to Elizabeth Warren, who is heading up the administration’s efforts to implement the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Date has been an influential player in […]

It’s the second anniversary of TARP, and people are still angry about it. The program’s costs, however, continue to drop; right now, they amount to $66 billion — out of $700 billion spent — and that number could continue to decrease. That’s even with loss-leaders like the HAMP program, AIG and the auto bailouts included. […]

Not something I find myself thinking very often, but Third Way has a good idea: Give taxpayers a receipt. Something like this: That would be for someone with the 2009 U.S. median income of $34,140, who paid $5,400 in federal assessments, and it comes from this report [PDF] presenting the idea. The authors, David Kendall […]

Steve Benen and Alex Pareene comment on the terrible deal, at least on its face, that Majority Leader Harry Reid struck with Republicans to get non-controversial nominees (none of them judges or supremely qualified economists) confirmed by Congress: The Senate will stay in pro forma session over the election recess, meaning that the president can […]

Tomorrow the Financial Stability Council, a new institution consisting of the heads of the major regulatory agencies and chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, will meet and your humble correspondent will be there to cover the public portion of the event. The impeccable Damian Paletta has an informative preview of the council’s […]

I reported earlier on a speech by Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration’s new consumer finance adviser. Warren is considered polarizing, but that reputation has less to do with Warren’s views — she espouses a common-sense approach to regulatory capitalism — and more to do with the beholder’s ideology. For instance, here’s Bloomberg News, a top […]