Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, said this morning that he expects the nation’s economy to grow about 4 percent next year and almost that fast in 2011. That means the recession is definitely over, and Prakken admits that he’s…

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, is worried about falling into a “trap” in which deflation remains a danger and interest rates remain low for an extended period of time. To avoid that trap, he said…

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, has spent most of his career figuring out how to fight inflation. So when he stands up and says that what we need is more inflation, people should take notice.

In a…

Peter Crane, a leading expert on money-market mutual funds, says you soon may have to pay your fund to hold your money. According to a Bloomberg story, he believes an interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week might push the…

Bloomberg has a good analysis today of how the Federal Reserve Board’s emergency actions have diminished the authority of regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The strongest criticism comes from Bill Poole, who held the regional presidency in St. Louis until he retired earlier…

According to Real Time Economics, Clayton-based Macroeconomic Advisers now expects the Federal Reserve to cut a key short-term interest rate to zero by January. The firm’s Laurence Meyer and Brian Sack also think the federal funds rate will remain at…

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, notes that with its target rate at 1 percent, the Federal Reserve doesn’t have much more room to manage the economy by cutting rates. In a speech yesterday in Evansville, Ind., Bullard…

Now that the Federal Reserve has done what everyone expected, reducing its key overnight interest rate to 1 percent from 1.5 percent, it’s time to start thinking about the Fed’s next move. As I said in Tuesday’s column, a 1 percent…

Does the Federal Reserve listen to Bill Gross? The manager of the world’s largest bond fund posted a commentary yesterday urging the central bank to intervene in the commercial-paper market, and today the Fed obliged. The decision to directly purchase private…

Negative interest rates may sound like something out of “Through the Looking Glass,” but they’re a reality these days in the market for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. Holders of TIPS get the quoted interest rate plus a sum that compensates for…