Federal Reserve

Family Feud is a gameshow which started in 1976 and aired through 1985.  After a few years hiatus, it returned in 1988, only to end again in 1995.  Then as the last century came to a close, it managed to make another comeback, one which has lasted through today.  It pits two families against each other, competing to determine answers to survey questions previously asked to a grou

There are many sticking points in the American economy these days.  Inflation comes to mind.  So does our Federal Reserve.  Or what about the growth rate of the economy?  It’s not quite molasses-like just yet, but the pace of output is gaining viscosity.

Software runs our world.  Whatever apparatus you’re reading this note on has programs and operating systems which allow you to receive and delete (hopefully not too quickly) this note.  Some of the code runs in the background doing things I’ll never understand, but other parts of it create feature or functionality designed to be useful to us as users.  Occasionally, a

Each year the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve hosts a symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  It’s a who’s who of economics, finance, and central banking.  The world’s brain trust gathers to enjoy the bears, do some fishing, and see the natural beauty that accompanies any event with the Grand Tetons as a backdrop.  In between sessions with the great outdo

Technologist are busy creating machines capable of making human-like decisions in an instant.  Self-driving cars are probably the most obvious example.  In 2014 researchers at the MIT Media Lab introduced the Moral Machine, a website to crowdsource individuals’ decisions on how self-driving cars should prioritize lives in accident scenarios (e.g., how should it react when faced

Baseball season is about half way over with the All-Star Game taking place this coming Tuesday.  Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers have, thus far, been treated to a winning season.  Of course, October is many months away, so it’s premature to call this year’s team champions.  Contrarily, the calendar year is just beyond the half-way mark, and the Federal Reserve isn&rsq

When I learned to drive, I was taught two techniques help stop a car in a hurry: down shifting and pumping the brakes.  It required an understanding of when to use the two together and also the finesse to pull it off efficiently.  If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I could do it anymore.  It’s been decades since I’ve owned a car with a manual transmissio

Shhhhhh…Did you hear that?  Policy changes are afoot globally.  Central banks around the world are quickly pivoting their positions on the global economy.  It started Wednesday with America’s Federal Reserve.  But then the Bank of England (BOE) got in on it yesterday.  After years of supporting economic output by creating money, they are starting to reverse