Fascinating Juxtaposition The two photos above, from today’s New York Times, present a fascinating juxtaposition. The photo on the left shows FDR signing legislation — known as The Glass-Steagall Act — separating the nation’s investment banks from its commercial banks. It was the latter that held ordinary Americans’ savings deposits, and it was the former’s...Read More
Adjustable Rate Mortgages the Missing Link What about Greenspan’s argument that he only controlled short-term rates? And that short rates became decoupled from long-term rates in 2002? Nonsense, says [Stanford Professor John] Taylor. Surely the existence of adjustable-rate mortgages (accounting for about one-third of mortgages starting in 2003) linked the mortgage market and short-term rates....Read More
