Fed Chairman Bernanke warned lawmakers of the importance of the need to address the fiscal challenges facing the U.S.
Originally from WSJ.com: Economy
Fed Chairman Bernanke warned lawmakers of the importance of the need to address the fiscal challenges facing the U.S.
Originally from WSJ.com: Economy
Matt Yglesias has a great post over at Moneybox (paragraph breaks added):
… The Depression discredited the gold standard and a whole set of related notions.
The Great Inflation discredited ideas about the Phillips Curve …
We had, until recently, the Great Moderation Consensus that … the Federal Reserve has the ability to stabilize the macroeconomy by fiddling with interest rates.
Well now here we are and the Federal Reserve can’t stabilize the macroeconomy by fiddling with interest rates.
That calls for the creation of a new regime.
I’ve dumbed it down a bit here. He also talks about employment, for instance, including this great line:
…if the government isn’t abandoning the idea of full employment then they have a mighty strange way of showing it.
But I think I’ve imparted the main question. We’ve been or are going through a paradigm-falsifying “moment.” (As always, some good thinking will be cast aside along with some bad.)
What will move into the vacuum left by the (at least partially) ravaged Great Moderation paradigm?
Courtesy of David Beckworth and The Kauffman Foundation (PDF), here’s how econobloggers would like that question to be answered (thanks, FTA, for the great question):
Personally, I fondly envision some coherent amalgam of the M&M gang: Market Monetarists (NGDPers) and Modern Monetary Theorists (with a decent dose of the Austrian’s insight into real-economy production and productivity). I’m guessing that some have already ventured (some parts of) this amalgamation, quite possibly in posts I’ve already read and since forgotten. Thoughts? Links?
(Even as I post this I find that vimothy, JKH, and Steve Randy Waldman are worrying productively at parts of this very question in the comments here.)
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Originally from Angry Bear
Notes: This CoreLogic House Price Index report is for December. The Case-Shiller index released last week was for November. Case-Shiller is currently the most followed house price index, however CoreLogic is used by the Federal Reserve and is followed by many analysts. The CoreLogic HPI is a three month weighted average of September, October and November (November weighted the most) and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA).
From CoreLogic: CoreLogic® Prices fell by 4.7 percent nationally in 2011
The CoreLogic HPI shows that, including distressed sales, home prices in the U.S. decreased 4.7 percent in 2011 compared with December 2010. This year-end report shows that home prices continued the trend of year-end decreases—this is the fifth consecutive year with a decrease in the HPI. The HPI excluding distressed sales shows that home prices decreased by 0.9 percent in 2011, giving an indication of the impact of distressed sales on home prices in 2011.
The report also shows that national home prices including distressed sales decreased 1.4 percent on a month-over-month basis, the fifth consecutive monthly decline. However, the HPI excluding distressed sales posted its first month-over-month gain since July 2011, rising 0.2 percent.
“While overall prices declined by almost 5 percent in 2011, non-distressed prices showed only a small decrease. Until distressed sales in the market recede, we will see continued downward pressure on prices,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.Click on graph for larger image.
This graph shows the national CoreLogic HPI data since 1976. January 2000 = 100.
The index was down 1.4% in December, and is down 4.7% over the last year.
The index is off 33.7% from the peak - and is now at a new post-bubble low.
Some of this decline was seasonal (the CoreLogic index is NSA) and month-to-month price changes will probably remain negative through March 2012. Last year prices fell about 4% from December 2010 to March 2011, and there will probably be a similar decline this year.
All House Price Graphs
Originally from Calculated Risk
CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.
Originally from Reuters: Business News
CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.
Originally from Reuters: Business News
CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.
Originally from Reuters: Business News
The tech sector got a boost from a broad market uptick following the Fed meeting on Wednesday. Apple led the gains, closing at a new all-time high, while Corning, Molex and Nvidia shares sink.
Originally from MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve on Friday showed how it plans to display its forecast for the date of the first rate hike and the pace of subsequent moves. The Fed said that it will release a bar chart that denotes in what year Fed officials believe that rates will rise for the first time. The Fed will also present a chart of each Fed member's estimate of where interest rates will be in 2012, 2013 and 2014. There will also be a chart of where Fed members believe short-term rates will be over the longer run. Fed officials have stressed that these forecasts are conditional on the absence of further shocks. Currently, the Fed has said that rates will remain close to zero until "at least mid-2013."
Originally from MarketWatch
Federal Reserve officials are waiting to see how the economy performs before deciding whether to launch another bond-buying program.
Originally from WSJ.com: Economy
Articles and Discussions on The Federal Reserve
