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Price Stability: Are We There Yet?

22 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by Nuetzel in Inflation, Liberty, Monetary Policy

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Adam Shapiro, Bloomberg, Cleveland Fed, Demand-Driven Inflation, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, Inflation Targets, Joe Wiesenthal, Median CPI, Modern Monetary Theory, Money Printing, Noah Smith, Omnibus Spending Bill, Optimal Rate of Inflation, Pay-As-You-Go Law, PCE Deflator, Price Stability, Quantitative Easing, Rate Targets, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Supply-Driven Inflation, Team Transitory, Trading Economics, Trimmed CPI

The answer to that question, kids, is a resounding no! The Federal Reserve created far too much liquidity during and after the pandemic and waited too long to reverse that policy. That’s a common view among the “monetarazzi”, but far too many analysts, in the next breath, assert that the Fed is going too far in tightening policy. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways! Thus far, the reductions we’ve seen in the monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3) represent barely a trickle out of the ocean of liquidity released during the previous two years. The recent slight moderation in the rate of inflation is unlikely to gain momentum without persistence by the Fed.

This Could Be Easier

I humbly concede, however, that a different approach by the Fed might have been less disruptive. A better alternative would have involved more aggressive reductions in the gigantic portfolio of securities it acquired via “quantitative easing” (QE) during the pandemic while avoiding direct intervention to raise short-term interest rates. In fact, allowing interest rates to be determined by the market, rather than via central bank intervention, is more sensible in terms of pricing debt of any duration. It also suggests a more direct and sensible approach to managing the growth of the money supply. Of course, had the Fed unwound QE more aggressively, short-term rates would surely have risen anyway, but to levels appropriate to rationing liquidity more efficiently. Furthermore, those rates could have served as a useful indicator of the market’s ability to digest a particular volume of sales from the Fed’s portfolio.

Getting Tight

The chart below shows the level of the monetary base (bank reserves plus currency) over the past five years from the Trading Economics site. The monetary base is the narrow monetary aggregate supporting growth of the money stock and is under fairly direct control of the Fed.

The base has declined substantially during 2022 largely as a consequence of the Fed’s restrictive policies. However, it has retraced only about a third of the massive expansion engineered by the Fed over the two prior years. Here is the corresponding plot of the M1 money stock (currency plus checking deposits):

So the reductions in the base have yet to translate into much of a reduction in the money stock, though growth in all of the aggregates has certainly declined. No one thinks this will be a walk in the park. Withdrawing liquid capital from markets accustomed to swilling in excesses will have consequences, particularly for investors who’ve grown undisciplined in their approach to evaluating prospective assets. Investors and society at large inevitably pay the price for the malinvestment encouraged by unbridled money growth (not to mention misdirected industrial policies … that’s a different can of worms).

But the squeamish resist! I got a kick out of this tweet by Noah Smith in which he pokes fun at those who insist that the surge in inflation was a mere transitory phenomenon:

“Team Transitory: OMG inflation is just going to go away, you don’t need to raise interest rates.

Fed: *raises interest rates*

Inflation: *goes down a bit*

Team Transitory: SEE, I told you inflation was going away and that you didn’t need to raise interest rates!!”

Well, in fairness, “Team Transitory” has been fixated on supply disruptions that very well should resolve with private efforts over time. Some have resolved already. And again, we’ve yet to feel much impact from the Fed’s tighter policy, but I’m amused by the tweet nevertheless.

In fact, the surge in inflation has been driven by both supply and demand factors, and it’s true the Fed can do very little about the former. But stalling the effort to purge excess liquidity and demand-side inflation risks allowing expectations of inflation to edge higher, creating an environment in which price pressures are more resistant to policy actions.

Inflation And Its Proximate Sources

It is indeed good news that inflation has tapered slightly over the past few months, or at least the “headline” inflation numbers have tapered. Weaker energy prices helped a great deal, though releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve aren’t sustainable. Measures of “core” inflation that exclude food and energy prices, and more central measures of inflation within the spectrum of goods and services, have moved sideways or perhaps shown signs of a slight moderation.

Here’s a plot of several measures of CPI inflation taken from the Cleveland Fed’s web site. Note that the median component of the CPI has finally hit a plateau, and a “trimmed” measure that excludes CPI components with extreme changes has dipped slightly. The Core CPI has fluctuated in a range just above 6% for most of the year.

The deflator for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) gets more emphasis from the Fed in its policy deliberations. The latest release at the start of December showed patterns similar to the CPI:

With respect to the PCE deflator, the slight dampening of price pressure we’ve seen recently came primarily from the supply side, with some progress on the demand side as well. Energy was one factor on the supply side, but even the core PCE deflator shows less supply pressure. Adam Shapiro has a decomposition of the PCE deflator into supply-driven and demand-driven components (but the chart only goes through October):

First, without endorsing Shapiro’s construction of this dichotomy, I note that the impact of monetary policy is primarily through the demand side of the economy. Of course, monetary instability isn’t good for producers, and excessive money growth and inflation create uncertainty that inhibits supply. But what we’ve seen recently has more to do with the curing of supply chain bottlenecks that cropped up during the pandemic (or in its wake), and Shapiro attempts to capture that kind of phenomenon here.

Still, many would argue that the November CPI showed sufficient progress for the Fed to pause its tightening campaign. The reductions in the monthly price increases were fairly widespread, as shown by this table from the CPI report:

The next chart from Joe Wiesenthal (via Bloomberg) displays trends in broad CPI categories, but it shows vividly that the reductions were concentrated in energy components and goods prices, while services and food inflation did not really abate. (The legend is so hard to read that I took the liberty of blowing it up a bit below the chart itself):

Playing Catch-Up

While the Fed’s effort to restrain inflation began in earnest in the spring of this year, it lifted the federal funds rate target rapidly. Here’s another chart from Adam Shapiro, via the Wall Street Journal: the Fed’s current tightening cycle is the fastest in 40 years in terms of those rate hikes:

Fast, yes, but they got a late start in the face of a rapid acceleration of inflation, and for what it’s worth, the Fed’s rate target remains below the rate of inflation. Yes, I’m forced to acknowledge here that the Fed’s preference for rate intervention and targeting is just what they do, for now. In any case, top-line inflation and strictly demand-side inflation are still above the Fed’s 2% target.

Fabian Fiscal Expansionists

One “fix” recommended in some circles suggests that the Fed’s inflation target is too low, as if price stability had nothing to do with its mandate! The idea that low-grade inflation is a healthy thing has never been convincingly demonstrated. In fact, the monetary literature leans strongly in the direction of price stability and an optimal rate of inflation of zero! That the Fed should aim for higher inflation seems like a cop-out intended to appease those who still subscribe to the discredited notion that there exists a reliable long-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.

In fact, proposals to increase the central bank’s inflation target would enable more deficit spending financed with the “printing press”, which is at the root of the demand-side inflation problem we now face. A major justifications for ballooning levels of federal spending has been so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMM), which has gained adherents among statists in the years since the Great Recession. MMM holds that “important” initiatives can simply be paid for with new money creation, rather than interest bearing debt, or God forbid, taxes! “Partisan” is probably a better description than “theorist” for any fan of MMM, and they have convinced themselves that money financed deficits are without inflationary consequences. Of course, this represents a complete suspension of the law of resource scarcity, not to mention years of monetary history. Raising the Fed’s inflation target plays well with the same free-lunch advocates who rally behind MMM.

The Fed’s Unfaithful Fiscal Partner

Federal budget control is likely to take another hit this week with passage of the $1.7 omnibus spending bill. It includes spending increases with no immediate offsets as required under the pay-as-you-go budget law. It delays those offsets to 2025 and increases deficits in the interim by hundreds of billions of dollars. It also sets a new, higher baseline for discretionary appropriations in future years. The federal deficit has already risen dramatically compared to a year ago under the fiscal profligacy of Congress and the Administration. Another contributing factor, however, is that the interest cost of servicing the national debt has spiked as interest rates have risen. Needless to say, none this makes the Fed’s job any easier, especially as it seeks to reverse QE.

Say Uncle!?

When will the Fed begin to take its foot off the brake? It “only” raised the Fed funds target by 50 basis points at its meeting last week (after four 75 bps moves in a row. It is expected to raise the target another 50 bps in early February and perhaps another 25 in March. Strong signals of imminent recession would be needed for the Fed to call it off any sooner, and we’re definitely seeing more hints of a weakening economy in the data (and see here, here, here, and here). More definitive declines in inflation would obviously help settle things. Otherwise, the Fed may pause after March in order to gauge progress toward its goal of 2% inflation.

The Fed’s Balance Sheet: What’s the Big Deal?

08 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Nuetzel in Government Failure, Inflation, Monetary Policy

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Allocation of Capital, Bank Reserves, crowding out, Debt Monetization, Fed Balance Sheet, Federal Funds, Federal Reserve, Fiscal Inflation, Inflation tax, Interest Rate Targeting, MBS, Monetary policy, Mortgage Backed Securities, QE, Quantitative Easing, Scarcity, Tapering

The Federal Reserve just announced tighter monetary policy in an attempt to reduce inflationary pressures. First, it raised its target range for the federal funds rate (on overnight loans between banks) by 0.5%. The new range is 0.75% – 1%. Second, on June 1, the Fed will begin taking steps to reduce the size of its $9 trillion portfolio of securities. These holdings were acquired during periods of so-called quantitative easing (QE) beginning in 2008, including dramatic expansions in 2020-21. A shorthand reference for this portfolio is simply the Fed’s “balance sheet”. It includes government debt the Fed has purchased as well as privately-issued mortgage-backed securities (MBS).

What Is This Balance Sheet You Speak Of?

Talk of the Fed’s balance sheet seems to mystify lots of people. During the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed began to inject liquidity into the economy by purchasing large amounts of assets to be held on its balance sheet. This was QE. It’s scope was unprecedented and a departure from the Fed’s pre-crisis reliance on interest rate targeting. QE had the effect of increasing bank reserves, which raised the possibility of excessive money supply growth. That’s when the Fed began to pay interest to banks on reserves, so they might be content to simply hold some of the reserves over and above what they are required to hold, rather than using all of that excess to support new loans and deposits (and thus money growth). However, that interest won’t stop banks from lending excess reserves if better opportunities present themselves.

The Fed has talked about reducing, “normalizing”, or “tapering” its balance sheet for some time, but it only recently stopped adding to it. With inflation raging and monetary policy widely viewed as too “dovish”, analysts expected the Fed to stop reinvesting proceeds from maturing securities, which amounts to about $95 billion per month. That would shrink or “taper” the balance sheet at a rate of about $1.1 trillion per year. Last week the Fed decided to cap the “runoff” at $47.5 billion per month for the first three months, deferring the $95 billion pace until September. Monetary policy “hawks” were disappointed by this announcement.

Monetizing Government

So, one might ask, what’s the big deal? Why must the Fed taper its securities holdings? Well, first, the rate of inflation is far above the Fed’s target range, and it’s far above the “average Joe’s” comfort range. Inflation imposes significant costs on the economy and acts as a regressive form of taxation, harming the poor disproportionately. To the extent that the Fed’s huge balance sheet (and the corresponding bank reserves) are supporting incremental money growth and fueling inflation, the balance sheet must be reduced.

In that connection, the Fed’s investment in government debt represents monetized federal debt. That means the Fed is essentially printing money to meet the Treasury’s financing needs. Together with profligate spending by the federal government, nothing could do more to convince investors that government debt will never be repaid via future budget surpluses. This dereliction of the government’s “full faith and credit”, and the open-armed acceptance of the inflation tax as a financing mechanism (à la Modern Monetary Theory), is the key driver of fiscal inflation. Reducing the balance sheet would represent de-monetization, which might help to restore faith in the Fed’s ability to push back against fiscal recklessness.

Buyer of First Resort

Perhaps just as critically, the Fed’s heavy investment in government debt and MBS represents an ongoing distortion to the pricing of financial assets and the allocation of capital. Some call this interference in the “price discovery process”. That’s because the Fed has represented a market-altering presence, a willing and inelastic buyer of government debt and MBS. Given that presence, it’s difficult for buyers and sellers to discern the true values of alternative uses of capital, or to care.

QE was, among other things, a welcome institutional development for the U.S. Treasury and for those who fancy that fresh money printing is an ever-valid form of government payment for scarce resources. The Fed’s involvement also means that other potential buyers of Treasury debt need not worry about interest rate risk, making public debt relatively more attractive than private debt. This is a dimension of the “crowding out” phenomenon, whereby the allocation of capital and flows of real resources between public and private uses are distorted.

The Fed’s presence as a buyer of MBS depresses mortgage rates and makes mortgage lending less risky for lenders and investors. As a result, it encourages an over-investment in housing and escalating home prices. This too distorts the allocation of capital and real resources, at the margin, toward housing and away from uses with greater underlying value.

Conclusion

The magnitude of the Fed’s balance sheet is an ongoing testament to an increasingly dominant role of central authorities in the economy. In this case, the Fed has served as a conduit for the inflation tax. In addition, it has unwittingly facilitated crowding out of private capital investment. The Fed’s purchases of MBS have distorted the incentives (and demand) for residential investment. These are subtle effects that the average citizen might not notice, just as one might not notice the early symptoms of a debilitating disease. The long-term consequences of the Fed’s QE activities, including the inflation tax and distorted allocations of capital, are all too typical of failures of government intervention and attempts at central planning. But don’t expect anyone at the Fed to admit it.

Central Banks Stumble Into Negative Rates, Damn the Savers

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Nuetzel in Central Planning, Monetary Policy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bank of Japan, central planning, Federal Reserve, Helicopter Drop, Income Effect vs. Substitution Effect, Interest Rate Manipulation, Intertemporal Tradeoffs, Malinvestment, Mises Institute, Monetary policy, negative interest rates, NIRP, Printing Money, Privacy Rights, QE, Quantitative Easing, Reach For Yield, regulation, War on Cash, Zero Interest Rate Policy, ZIRP

Dollar Cartoon

Should government actively manipulate asset prices in an effort to “manage ” economic growth? The world’s central bankers, otherwise at their wit’s end, are attempting just that. Hopes have been pinned on so-called quantitative easing (QE), which simply means that central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) buy assets (government and private bonds) from the public to inject newly “printed” money into the economy. The Fed purchased $4.5 trillion of assets between the last financial crisis and late 2014, when it ended its QE. Other central banks are actively engaged in QE, however, and there are still calls from some quarters for the Fed to resume QE, despite modest but positive economic growth. The goals of QE are to drive asset prices up and interest rates down, ultimately stimulating demand for goods and economic growth. Short-term rates have been near zero in many countries (and in the U.S. until December), and negative short-term interest rates are a reality in the European Union, Japan and Sweden.

Does anyone really have to pay money to lend money, as indicated by a negative interest rate? Yes, if a bank “lends” to the Bank of Japan, for example, by holding reserves there. The BOJ is currently charging banks for the privilege. But does anyone really “earn” negative returns on short-term government or private debt? Not unless you buy a short-term bill and hold it till maturity. Central banks are buying those bills at a premium, usually from member banks, in order to execute QE, and that offsets a negative rate. But the notion is that when these “captive” member banks are penalized for holding reserves, they will be more eager to lend to private borrowers. That may be, but only if there are willing, credit-worthy borrowers; unfortunately, those are scarce.

Thus far, QE and zero or negative rates do not seem to be working effectively, and there are several reasons. First, QE has taken place against a backdrop of increasingly binding regulatory constraints. A private economy simply cannot flourish under such strictures, with or without QE. Moreover, government makes a habit of manipulating investment decisions, partly through regulatory mandates, but also by subsidizing politically-favored activities such as ethanol, wind energy, post-secondary education, and owner-occupied housing. This necessarily comes at the sacrifice of opportunities for physical investment that are superior on economic merits.

The most self-defeating consequence of QE and rate manipulation, be that zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) or negative interest rate policy (NIRP), is the distortion of inter-temporal tradeoffs that guide decisions to save and invest in productive assets. How, and how much, should individuals save when returns on relatively safe assets are very low? Most analysts would conclude that very low rates prompt a strong substitution effect toward consuming more today and less in the future. However, the situation may well engender a strong “income effect”, meaning that more must be saved (and less consumed in the present) in order to provide sufficient resources in the future. The paradox shouldn’t be lost on central bankers, and it may undermine the stimulative effects of ZIRP or NIRP. It might also lead to confusion in the allocation of productive capital, as low rates could create a mirage of viability for unworthy projects. Central bank intervention of this sort is disruptive to the healthy transformation of resources across time.

Savers might hoard cash to avoid a negative return, which would further undermine the efficacy of QE in creating monetary stimulus. This is at the root of central bank efforts to discourage the holding of currency outside of the banking system: the “war on cash“. (Also see here.) This policy is extremely offensive to anyone with a concern for protecting the privacy of individuals from government prying.

Another possible response for savers is to “reach for yield”, allocating more of their funds to high-risk assets than they would ordinarily prefer (e.g., growth funds, junk bonds, various “alternative” investments). So the supply of saving available for adding to the productive base in various sectors is twisted by central bank manipulation of interest rates. The availability of capital may be constrained for relatively safe sectors but available at a relative discount to risky sectors. This leads to classic malinvestment and ultimately business failures, displaced workers, and harsh adjustment costs.

With any luck, the Fed will continue to move away from this misguided path. Zero or negative interest rates imposed by central banks penalize savers by making the saving decision excessively complex and fraught with risk. Business investment is distorted by confusing signals as to risk preference and inflated asset prices. Central economic planning via industrial policy, regulation, and price controls, such as the manipulation of interest rates, always ends badly. Unfortunately, most governments are well-practiced at bungling in all of those areas.

 

 

 

Central Bank Bubbles Pop On Our Heads

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Nuetzel in Big Government, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy

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Asset Bubble, Asset Price Distortion, Boom and bust, capital costs, Capital investment, Easy Money, Jim Grant, Market Manipulation, Martin Feldstein, Quantitative Easing, Ryan McMaken, Seigniorage, Supportive Earnings, Zero Interest Rate Policy, ZIRP

boom_and_bust

Printing money is a temptation that central banks can’t resist. And they distort prices when they do it. The new “liquidity” finds its way into higher asset values: stocks, bonds, real estate, even art. But as Jim Grant points out (as quoted by Ryan McMaken), the inflated prices are artificial, decoupled from the actual value those assets are capable of generating. The high asset prices are unsustainable:

“The idea is that you put the cart of asset values before the horse of enterprise. By raising up asset values, you mobilize spending by people who have assets… It was otherwise known as trickle-down economics before the enlightenment, then it became something much fancier in economic lingo. But that’s essentially the idea. So what you have seen is an artificial structure of prices worldwide.”

This comports with the general drift one gets from chatting with financial market professionals about the Federal Reserve and other central banks. These advisors usually add a reflexive assurance that corporate earnings are adequate to support stock prices. So which is it? Those very earnings might reflect trading gains on assets held by financial institutions and others, so the “supportive earnings” argument is circular to some degree. That aside, it’s suggestive that the recent market selloff has been centered on tighter monetary conditions:

“‘The risk of global liquidity conditions swinging is real for the markets, justifying a significant reduction in exposure for all asset classes,’ said Didier Saint-Georges, managing director at Carmignac, in a note to clients.“

Likewise, significant rebounds have been attributed, at least in part, to softening expectations that the Fed will move to increase short-term interest rates next week. If asset values are so heavily dependent on a continuation of a zero-interest rate, easy-money policy at this stage of an economic expansion, then it looks like a bubble is waiting to pop. More liquidity might delay the inevitable.

How did we get here? Martin Feldstein describes the policy of “quantitative easing” (QE) in “The Fed’s Stock Price Correction“:

“When the Obama administration’s poorly designed 2009 stimulus legislation failed to produce a strong economic turnaround, then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the central bank would pursue an ‘unconventional monetary policy’ by purchasing immense amounts of long-term bonds and promising to hold short-term interest rates near zero for an extended period.

Mr. Bernanke explained that the Fed’s policy was designed to drive down long-term interest rates, inducing portfolio investors to shift from bonds to stocks. This ‘portfolio substitution’ strategy, as he labeled it, would increase share prices, raising household wealth and therefore consumer spending.“

Feldstein does not buy the contention that “earnings are supportive”. Despite his conventional demand-side approach to macroeconomics, he too emphasizes that loose monetary policy has distorted asset prices.

The process is exacerbated by the bloated federal government’s appetite for funds. The Treasury is able to float debt at very low interest rates, thanks to the Fed’s willingness to provide liquidity to the banking system. By that, I mean the Fed’s willingness to buy Treasury bonds and monetize federal deficit spending.

Jim Grant’s argument regarding price distortion goes further. Increases in the prices of financial assets artificially deflate the cost of raising new capital, translating into over-investment in physical assets such as office buildings and machinery. Here’s Grant:

The prices themselves are the cosmetic evidence of underlying difficulty. So if you misprice something, it’s not just the price that’s wrong. It’s the thing itself that has been financed by the price. So you have perhaps too many oil derricks, too many semi-conductor fabs. We have too much of something, which is financed by an excess of credit or debt.“

Thus, the boom feeds the inevitable bust. That is certainly a danger. I’m sympathetic to Grant’s reasoning, but we have not experienced much of a boom in physical capital investment in the U.S., except perhaps for commercial real estate and in capital-intensive oil and gas extraction, and the latter is now on the skids. China, however, has been aggressively over-investing, and that is coming to an end.

While asset values have likely been inflated, it is fair to ask why the Fed’s accommodative policy has not led to a more general inflation in the prices of goods and services. For one thing, the strong dollar has held import prices down. (The international value of the dollar has been buttressed by the view that dollar-denominated assets are relatively safe, despite the risks created by the Fed.) More importantly, aging baby boomers have contributed to relatively strong saving activity (and less spending). Paradoxically, it’s possible that saving has been reinforced by the zero-rate policy of the Fed, as noted before on Sacred Cow Chips. Buying extra comfort in retirement requires greater set-asides if rates are low.

I am not optimistic about the direction of asset values, but I am not adjusting my own investment profile. Market timing is generally a bad strategy, and I will do my best to ride out the market’s ups and downs, even if they are manipulated by the Fed. However, we should all demand more discipline from the federal government and more restraint from the Fed. Better yet, limit the Fed’s discretion in the conduct of monetary policy by relying on a monetary standard that is less prone to manipulation and seigniorage.

Mortgage Mania at the Fed

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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Tags

Fannie Mae, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, Industrial Policy, Monetary Stimulus, Mortgage Interest Deduction, Mortgage Securities, Quantitative Easing, Richmond Fed, Wall Street Journal

bernanke-fed-qe

The Federal Reserve has no business distorting incentives by dabbling with billions in markets for private debt. Kudos to two officials at the Richmond Fed for making this point forcefully in the Wall Street Journal** today.

Normally, the Fed conducts monetary policy by buying or selling Treasury debt, which is thought to be neutral with respect to relative private interest rates. In other words, the Fed’s impact on the Treasury market, whatever that might be, does not encourage investment in housing at the expense of factory investment or vice versa. Since 2009, however, the Fed has attempted to support the housing and mortgage markets via massive purchases  of mortgage securities originally issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This has the effect of reducing mortgage interest rates relative to rates on other kinds of private debt. It also constitutes a form of bailout for mortgage investors, who tend to receive favorable bids from the Fed for these assets. Free money! And more free money is dolled out by the Fed when it pays banks interest on the new reserve balances these transactions ultimately create.

One might object that the struggling mortgage market needed the Fed’s support in the wake of the housing crash. I do not accept that view because the mortgage and housing markets needed to unwind their excesses and monetary stimulus did not require mortgage purchases. But this also begs the question: what gave rise to the crisis? Over-investment in housing and a home price bubble fueled by tax-deductible interest, easy Fed monetary policy, regulatory capital standards that favored mortgage lending, prospective bailouts in case of failure, and loose bank credit standards. Those should all sound familiar. Now, the Fed believes it’s necessary to re-inflate the mortgage market via continuing asset purchases.

The Fed’s policies can be criticized on other grounds, but interfering in private debt markets should be avoided. It is an example of industrial policy that is clearly not even part of the Fed’s so-called mandate, and it ultimately means a continuing massive misallocation of resources into housing at the expense of other forms of investment.

** The article at the link should be ungated. If not, try Googling “wsj Fed’s Mortgage Favoritism.”

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The Gymnasium

A place for reason, politics, economics, and faith steeped in the classical liberal tradition

A Force for Good

How economics, morality, and markets combine

Notes On Liberty

Spontaneous thoughts on a humble creed

troymo

SUNDAY BLOG Stephanie Sievers

Escaping the everyday life with photographs from my travels

Miss Lou Acquiring Lore

Gallery of Life...

Your Well Wisher Program

Attempt to solve commonly known problems…

Objectivism In Depth

Exploring Ayn Rand's revolutionary philosophy.

RobotEnomics

(A)n (I)ntelligent Future

Orderstatistic

Economics, chess and anything else on my mind.

Paradigm Library

OODA Looping

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