Since the EU’s debt crisis over Greece in 2009 and the subsequent problems with Italy, Spain, and Portugal, eurozone banks have dedicated their balance sheets to financing government deficits. At a cost to the commercial banks’ own cash flows, negative deposit...
In response to the potential economic downturn in the economy arising from the spread of the Coronavirus, the Federal Reserve dropped the federal funds rate by half a point — to a range of 1% to 1.25%. Ironically, after the Fed’s announcement, the stock market dropped...
The Trump administration posted another massive budget deficit to start out calendar-year 2020. According to the latest data released by the U.S. Treasury Department, Uncle Sam spent $32.6 billion more than it took in last month. That compares with an $8.7 billion...
The global economy is heading towards a “liquidity trap” that could undermine central banks’ efforts to avoid a future recession according to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times (January 8, 2020), the...
Repealing certificate-of-need (CON) laws can stimulate more healthcare supply and access Did you know that in many states, healthcare providers need to obtain government permission before rolling out new services or technologies? It sounds nonsensical, but these...
In various writings, Milton Friedman argued that there is a variable lag between changes in money supply and its effect on real output and prices. Friedman held that in the short run changes in money supply will be followed by changes in real output. However, in the...
As this article shows, technology creates more jobs than it destroys – despite the claims to the contrary, innovation is a job creator, not a job demolisher”. But this issue keeps receiving attention. For example, Bill de Blasio’s “robot tax” idea and Andrew Yang’s...
Whenever a central bank introduces easy monetary policy, as a rule this leads to an economic boom — or economic prosperity. At least this is what most commentators hold. If this is however the case then it means that an easy monetary policy can grow an economy. But...
