"The Lights Go Out in Lebanon as Financial Collapse Accelerates," declared a recent headline in The Washington Post. The headline refers specifically to worsening power outages but more generally to Lebanon's ongoing "economic implosion." This breakdown is due in large part to chaos in Lebanon's monetary and…
"The public plainly showed that it recovered from the fear and hysteria which characterized the last few days before the banking holiday was proclaimed." (The New York Times, March 14th, 1933.) During the opening days of March, 1933, the U.S. economy resembled a stricken body slowly bleeding…
Today, when we speak of ways to fight recessions, two options inevitably take pride of place: expansionary Fed policy (meaning lower interest rates or more asset purchases or both) and expansionary fiscal policy (more government spending or lower taxes or both). But if you've been keeping up…
Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Congress appropriated $454 billion to the Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) to backstop emergency lending facilities known as "special purpose vehicles" (SPVs).[1] With the Treasury backstop, the Fed has the potential to lend a maximum of $4.5…
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert," the economist Milton Friedman once quipped, "in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." The U.S. Mint, to its credit, had a much longer run. The Federal Reserve, which purchases coins from the Mint…