The Feed

The record drought and crop failures will create shortages, especially of corn, and will increase the prices of many foods that either contain the stuff or use it to feed livestock. That, in turn, will cause an uptick in the rate of inflation. And higher prices willgive the inflation hawks in the Federal Reserve more ammunition ...

The flood of reports about the New York City Police Department’s surveillance of American Muslims – in mosques, restaurants, bookstores and even elementary schools in New York, New Jersey, New Orleans and beyond – has triggered a range of responses around the country. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have defended the programme, ...

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his final State of the Union Speech on Jan. 11, 1944, called on Congress to create a “Second Bill of Rights,” an “economic bill of rights,” guaranteeing, among other things: a job with a living wage; freedom from unfair competition and monopolies; homeownership, medical care and education Roosevelt did not ...

Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old African-American woman from Philadelphia, suddenly cannot vote. Although she once marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the right to do so, and has dutifully cast a ballot for five decades, in this election year she may be denied this basic right. Under Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law, Applewhite ...

Proponents of the status quo in the financial sector just cannot catch a break. Early August is supposed to be a time when regulators and markets slow down, or perhaps even take a vacation. But this year news of mismanagement or worse continues to emerge from complex financial institutions. It’s time for a new approach ...

The case of the rigged Libor turns out to be the scandal that just keeps on giving. It reveals a great deal about the behaviour of the Federal Reserve Board and central banks more generally. Last month, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave testimony before Congress in which he said that he had become ...

Investors are awaiting the miraculous delivery from crisis by the ECB and the Fed, but they are waiting in vain. The economic problems in the U.S. and Eurozone are mostly structural, not monetary. Unfortunately ideologues and politicians on both sides of the spectrum are interested in quick fixes rather than the real groundwork of economic ...

Much political debate in the United States today boils down to one deceptively simple question: who are the moochers? Consider two meanings embedded in the dictionary definition of the verb “mooch”: 1. To obtain or try to get something free of charge and 2. To steal; filch. The first meaning seems to dominate, with the term often ...

The euro crisis is once again dominating the headlines. Renewed talk of a Greek exit, record yields for Spanish bonds and rising Italian borrowing costs have been splashed all over newspaper headlines. On July 25, the yield on two year bonds for Spain hit more than 7 per cent, with the borrowing cost for both ...

Generations of Americans have worked together to build our nation’s Social Security system. Each citizen contributes through a lifetime of work, and each is entitled to claim an assured benefit to see him or her through retirement and old age, or in the event of a serious disability or the death of a working parent ...