This is an interview with Jeff Garten at Yale, covering financial crises and reform/regulation efforts rather broadly. Source here. It's part of a very interesting series of interviews on the "future of global finance" with lots of superstars. I give Niall Ferguson the prize for most creative author photo.
This one is a podcast interview on the ACA and how free-market health care can work, with Don Watkins at the Ayn Rand institute's "debt dialogues" series. If you follow the link you get several formats.
John, one minor gripe,
ReplyDeleteThe Federal Open Market Committee does not set the interest rate that the federal government pays on its debt. That interest rate is set at auction by a combination of the U. S. Treasury Department and the various bidders for that debt (primary dealer banks being the single largest group of bidders).
The FOMC sets the price it will pay for existing government bonds. The FOMC does not participate in government bond auctions. The Federal Reserve sets the interest rate it will lend money at to private banks, who in turn lend the money to the federal government by bidding for government debt.
The easiest way for the federal reserve to diffuse any fiscal policy considerations is either
A. Politely tell the federal government to begin selling equity in lieu of debt
B. Rudely tell the primary dealer banks that they will now have to fund the federal budget deficit by issuing equity (no more borrow short from Fed, lend long to federal government)
I prefer scenario A, you seem to prefer scenario B.