The Federal Open-Market Committee’s decision Tuesday to leave its target interest rate unchanged surprised no one. Under Alan Greenspan, it adopted a practice of changing course only after prior warning. It had not given such hints after its November meeting.…
Immigration reform complex
The coordinated raids Tuesday on Swift & Co. packing plants in Worthington, Minn. and five other cities around the country highlight the inherent complications of immigration reform. In each case, large numbers of federal officers led by Immigration and Customs…
Politics can scuttle Fed’s mission
History has demonstrated repeatedly that when a nation’s money supply is subordinated to politics, inflation results and society suffers. The United States structured the Federal Reserve to minimize political tinkering. But elected officials still pressure Fed decision makers to manipulate…
Price laws are useless relics of New Deal
Institutions and laws often outlive the problems they were created to solve — even when they were bad in the first place. Thomas Hobbes, the 17th-century English philosopher, famously described the politicized Renaissance papacy as “the ghost of the deceased…