…Calmly observing the changing world

If your weather hasn’t cast a pall over June as it has here in the Pacific Northwest, the news and the economy surely have.  The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights governmental incompetence, the G20 lacks unified economic policy, some place called Kyrgyzstan is a complete basket case, and currencies and markets gyrate [...]

Last Tuesday, the Federal Reserve made the history-making but expected decision to lower interest rates (for banks borrowing money “short term”) to a range of “0% to 0.25%”. Theoretically, this will stimulate the economy, but no one actually seems to believe that allowing banks to borrow endless amounts of money for free will help very [...]