With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Niall Ferguson: The Fed’s Dirty Easy Money

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Which mattered more to you last week: the Republican National Convention in Tampa, or the Federal Reserve’s annual economic-policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.?

If you’re just managing to get by, then it was the former. In his barnstorming speech, Paul Ryan nailed it again: “The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited ... but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Direct hit.

But if you’re one of the fortunate few who manages anything above $100 million in financial assets, it was Jackson Hole you were watching, for any sign of fresh monetary stimulus from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke....

Read entire article at The Daily Beast