Tim Fernholz

The Economist‘s Ryan Avent has a compelling critique of the Fed, and timely, too, as our economic masters gather in Washington today to discuss their policies in light of the latest economic news. If reports are correct, they will decide to do nothing about worsening indicators for a few more perilous months. Avent observes that […]

Today, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the recession ended well over a year ago, in June 2009. This is, of course, a technical definition, based on the relative expansion of the economy; the economists at the bureau — and certainly the rest of us — well understand that our economic doldrums are […]

The folks at Bloomberg have put together this nice widget for keeping track of who wants what from the fight over extending the Bush tax cuts. The visualization is useful in showing just how much of the Bush tax cuts President Obama actually supports — in rough dollar figures, just over three-quarters of them! Kenyan […]

After becoming an official member of the Obama administration, Elizabeth Warren spoke with bloggers on a conference call. While policy specifics were lacking, it is clear from both Obama’s remarks announcing the appointment in the Rose Garden and Warren’s own comments that, as I wrote this morning, Warren will most likely not be the permanent […]

Author John Green tells off pennies in this excellent video: I’m always amazed at how neatly the concentrated interests that benefit from government subsidies exploit ignorant sentimentality to their benefit. Big Penny isn’t the only culprit — see also the Big Ag (family farms need government support!) and Big Defense (our troops need wildly overpriced […]

One reason I’m a shade less pessimistic about the Democrats’ chances in this fall’s midterm elections than most observers: They have some good convergence coming up between their policy agenda and their political goals that might help them eliminate some of the enthusiasm gap and put Republicans on the defensive. Three examples: Elizabeth Warren: As […]

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had some of the administration’s strongest words yet on China’s currency policy in front of the Senate this morning. China has been artificially lowering the value of the Renminbi, thus making its exports more competitive (especially vis-à-vis the United States), in part by purchasing a lot of American debt. The administration […]

There was no small amount of pleasure among Democrats when a scathing news article ran in yesterday’s Washington Post highlighting Republican hypocrisy on deficits: Even as they hammer Democrats for running up record budget deficits, Senate Republicans are rolling out a plan to permanently extend an array of expiring tax breaks that would deprive the […]

There’s a strange debate going on among the Democrats, who are having a hard time deciding whether they want to force a vote on their plan to prevent middle- and lower-income taxes from increasing while putting a modest levy on earners over $250,000. The proposal would also increase capital gains and dividends taxes. As I […]