Originally published in the New York Times. Enough already about “transitory” inflation. Last Wednesday’s terrible Consumer Price Index news shifts our inflation prospects strongly into the “embedded” category: Prices are up 6.2 percent from a year ago, the largest increase in 30 years. While not likely to morph into the double-digit inflation I covered for The New York Times […]
Sometimes true costs are hidden by backloading them. Originally published in the New York Times. Americans of a certain age may remember J. Wellington Wimpy, a droll character from Popeye cartoons. “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” Wimpy would periodically implore passers-by. That pretty much summarizes the opaque budget math behind the two huge […]
It’s not time yet to be raising interest rates. But let’s at least stop pouring $120 billion a month into the financial markets. Originally published in the New York Times. On Wednesday the Federal Reserve tiptoed ever so slightly toward reducing its efforts to pump liquidity into the financial system. It did so through brief references that […]
“[a] surprisingly modest account…Rattner has a journalistic talent for the telling detail, resulting in a memorable tale of life in the middle of the economic meltdown...Rattner deftly draws portraits of the inhabitants of "the Oval" and the West Wing...Rattner has proved himself a gifted chronicler.”
-Time Magazine
