There are many ways that oil shocks affect the economy, and none of them is good. As the prices of gasoline, diesel and home heating fuel rise, consumers’ energy bills eat up a growing share of their after-tax income, forcing cutbacks in more discretionary areas of spending. The next thing you know, people are going [...]
Posts Tagged ‘inflation’
At the recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke signalled that he plans to keep interest rates effectively at zero for as long as possible, and that he’s ready to stand by with more quantitative easing (i.e. printing money) if necessary. But if the Fed’s blaming the last recession on [...]
There’s a reason for the record steepness in the yield curve these days. The huge gap between short-term and long-term borrowing rates isn’t just because capital markets quite rightly don’t believe that today’s virtually free borrowing rates in the money market are going to last. It’s also because of something a little more lasting than [...]


