Yesterday Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell talked up the economy and predicted more rate hikes to come this year while saying impact of potential tariff war is a big unknown. Steve Liesman of CNBC gave a quick breakdown in this…

[Newsweek column from May 26, 1952, and reprinted in Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt.] At his press conference on May 8, Mr. Truman, asked whether the chief danger was inflation or deflation, replied that the country had…

Even though Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley failed the so-called ‘stress test,’ to determine whether these banks can weather a financial crisis, the Fed allowed them to pay billions in dividends and stock buybacks to investors. Former financial regulator Bill…

Money supply growth fell to a three-month low in May this year, continuing a general downward slide in growth rates that’s been in place since late 2016. In May, year-over-year growth in the money supply fell to a 3-month low,…

The yield curve is flattening and that means that we are late in this economic and stock market cycle. The yield curve flattens when the short-term rates get closer to the long-term rates and can actually get inverted if short-term…

Most Federal Reserve meetings are not surprises. We know and have known for months that the Fed is going to raise interest rates today and will likely do so again in September. There is talk that the Fed may do…

For most economists and commentators the main role of the Fed is to keep the supply and demand for money in equilibrium. Whenever an increase in the demand for money occurs — in order to maintain the state of equilibrium —…