Money doesn't grow on trees. How often has one heard that cliche? But if horticulture cannot produce dollars and cents, then how is money created? One rather flip answer might be that money's value is created because the government 'says so.' Despite the sarcasm inherent in th...

Major sources of bank funds have changed in the past thirty years. This is due directly to the Federal Reserve's Regulation Q, which places ceiling limits on deposit rates. Banks would increase competition by offering higher interest rates than another bank. To keep bank deposit transactions st...

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Fed and Interest cuts One of Federal Reserve Bank's roles is to lessen financial crises by acting as a lender of last resort. The Fed is supposed to stand ready to provide fresh reserves to banks in need of cash. This lending is done through the discount window. The interest rate that the...

Fixing Short-Term Interest Rates Many things must be taken into consideration when approaching any aspect of economic policy. Policies and procedures cannot be effective, and can sometimes be very detrimental, without adequate knowledge of the economy in its individual parts and in its entiret...

A depression is a prolonged slowdown in buying and selling: Businesses are unable to sell all they produce. Stocks pile up, despite competitive price-cutting. Firms increasingly lay off workers or go out of business altogether. Because of the businesses laying off workers many people become unem...

the Great Depression as Part of the Business Cycle The exact causes of the business cycle is not an exact science, and often causes problems in economics. A depression is said to be caused when wages or prices fall to reach their market clearing price, and when the governments intervene by changi...

The great majority of Americans feel that the U.S. is the best example of democracy and capitalism in the "free" world. Well, if everything were working the way founders designed and intended this nation to run, that would be an accurate assumption. The founding fathers had the vision and intentio...

Maestro: Book Review Bob Woodward's book, Maestro, is sort of a mini-political biography of Alan Greenspan. The book doesn't get into Greenspan's personal life at all, rather it sticks to the discussion of Greenspan's work as an economist for the U.S. government. There is very...

"Greenspan and Friends" On Tuesday, March 20th, 2001 The Federal Reserve Committee led by Alan Greenspan decided to lower the federal funds rate from five and half percent to five percent. The Federal Funds Rate is the rate at which banks loan each other money over night. The Federa...

The Progressive Era - Federal Legislation The Progressive Era was a period in which the federal government increased its legislation and its grasp of the nation. There were three distinct pieces of federal legislation that seem to stick out, The Meat Inspection Act The Federal Reserve Act,, and Th...

The Progressive Era The first years of the 1900s is referred to as the "Progressive Era." This is because reformer were successful in what they did. Their reforms helped America "progress" to new changes. Teddy Roosevelt is one of these reformers. He broke up the large r...

The Progressive Era was a period in American history in which improving working conditions, exposing corruption, improving the way of life, expanding democracy, and making reforms were the objectives at hand. Many American citizens eagerly demanded a change in numerous areas such as business, labor...

The modern presidency began to rise in about 1900 with Theodore Roosevelt. He began a theme of the 20th century of more federal power within the government and more power of the president in particular. Theodore Roosevelt was president from 1901-1909. Both government and presidency increased during ...