Earlier this month, the Department of the Treasury released its long-awaited housing finance reform plan, which focused mainly on the two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The feds took both GSEs over in 2008, when rising defaults jeopardized their viability. The blueprint’s release date was…
How should central bankers provide aid to struggling financial institutions during a panic? Ask 19th-century economic theorist Walter Bagehot. Or, if you can't do that, ask his biographer: acclaimed author, publisher, and monetary scholar James Grant. Join Grant and the Cato Institute's George Selgin on Wednesday, September…
The Cato Institute's newest book, Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder, 1922–1938 is out now — and it's already getting rave reviews for challenging conventional wisdom on the Great Depression. In Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed, preeminent monetary…
As the 2020 presidential election season heats up, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is being pushed from all sides. President Trump has castigated him for overly tight monetary policy and has implied that Powell is a “bigger enemy” than Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, William Dudley, who recently headed…
Thanks to President's Trump's picks for prospective Fed Board nominees, the subject of gold price targeting (or a gold "price rule") is getting attention once again. The idea, which got a lot of attention back in the 1980s, after Arthur Laffer and other supply-siders, including Alan Reynolds,…