Most people are pleased when the value of some asset they own soars, even if it’s because of an un- sustainable bubble. Look at how most people reacted to the widespread run-up in housing prices between 2000 and 2006. The…
Are high prices for farmland creating next economic bubble?
Farmland prices are rising rapidly across Minnesota and the rest of the United States. In our urbanized society, this affects few people directly, but the forces that drive such price increases affect other areas of the economy. Data tabulations lag…
Change makes tracking inflation tricky
I just found a 28-year-old invoice for a refrigerator that illustrates a problem for economists: Measuring price changes is complicated. Some prices have gone up a lot over the past year. Gasoline is one example, although it is about where…
Congressional leaders tread dangerous ground in backing specific Fed policy
As American satirist Peter Finley Dunne’s character Mr. Dooley observed in the 1930s, “The Supreme Court follows the election returns.” The question today is whether the Federal Open Market Committee similarly follows political pressures. The letter that House Speaker John…