…Calmly observing the changing world

It’s no secret that the stock market has gone nowhere for a decade and that interest rates are so low that money is essentially free.  Armed with this knowledge, investors are exploring alternative avenues of building wealth – or at least preserving it. All companies are predicated on the fact that they put money to [...]

More often than not, the Federal Reserve presents a united front in as many of their statements as possible.  So we should take notice when – like now – there is a high profile departure from the consensus opinion. “Monetary policy is a useful tool, but it cannot solve every problem faced by the United [...]

The monetary system of the United States is controlled by the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank whose shareholders are unknown, whose profits are unknown, and whose policies are only deciphered through Congressional hearings – during which representatives of the Federal Reserve speak in FedSpeak, and run intellectual rings around most of the Congressmen, [...]

Changes in American administrations are a relatively smooth affair, and 2009 is no exception. Maybe this is because, in many respects, we are only changing the overlaying topography and can never seem to rid ourselves of the problems deeply woven into the fabric of our society. For those who are trusting a new batch of [...]

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 [...]

Today, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 1%. Don’t get confused though, you can’t borrow money at 1%, just the banks. Can you imagine what you could do if you could borrow money so inexpensively? I’m sure the banks have a few ideas of their own too. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The [...]