federal-reserve

Your Guide to the Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin That Obama Can Mint to Save the World

Max Read · 01/07/13 01:30PM

Today, New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that President Obama should be "absolutely" prepared to mint a one trillion dollar platinum coin and use it to pay the government's bills. It wasn't a typo: a lot of people are discussing the trillion-dollar coin as a way to avoid a fight over the debt ceiling. But what is it? And why? And whose face will be on it? Here's our guide.

Alleged Terrorist Attempts to Audit the Fed with 1,000 Pounds of (Fake) Explosives

Max Read · 10/17/12 04:26PM

Are American right-wing terrorists no longer competitive in their own country? Fifteen years ago, any terrorist plot against the New York Federal Reserve building would surely have been the product of one of our many fine homegrown white-nationalist separatist Christians, trying to stop Barack Maobama's Jewish bankers from taxing white babies. But now foreign-born students are moving here, and beating out our terrorists for some of the best plots: Today, the FBI arrested a 21-year-old Bangladeshi student, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, for attempting to blow up the Fed building 1,000 pounds of explosives. Where's Thomas Friedman when you need him?

The Government Wants To Know What You're Tweeting About Macroeconomics

Ryan Tate · 10/12/11 03:28PM

The Federal Reserve is working toward monitoring Facebook and Twitter to find out what people online are saying about the government bank's discount rate, open market operations and overall monetary policy. Do we tell them now that no one on Facebook or Twitter has ever given a shit about any of those things, or leave it for a surprise?

Republicans Demand That Fed Stop Trying to Help Economy

Max Read · 09/21/11 01:40AM

Doing their part to keep the struggling U.S. Postal Service afloat, Congressional Republican leaders sent a letter a to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday, demanding that he stop doing whatever it is that he's thinking of doing to help the economy, because they said so.

Even Ron Paul Thinks Rick Perry's a Nut

Jim Newell · 08/18/11 11:28AM

The Republican party's sudden hatred of the Federal Reserve and easier monetary policy, as encapsulated by Rick Perry's suggestion that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke might be committing "treason" by "printing money," is considered a vindication of Rep. Ron Paul's growing ideological clout among the party's rank-and-file. Ron Paul's goal for several decades has been to eliminate the Federal Reserve, after all! And yet even he thinks that Perry's comments were kind of insane.

No One Likes Dollar Coins

Seth Abramovitch · 06/29/11 03:19AM

The Federal Reserve vaults are sitting on $1 billion — that's with a "b" — in unused one-dollar coins, shunned currency that has been piling up since 2007, when a government program made their production compulsory. That number could double by 2016, when the program is scheduled to end.