Since the financial crisis in 2008/09 the Federal Reserve has printed trillions of dollars and purchased assets with them, mostly US government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. This has caused the assets on the Fed’s balance sheet to swell by around $2.5 trillion since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Operations of this magnitude have caused the [...]
By Chris Becker To understand the Rand price of gold, one needs to understand the history of the Rand. From 1825 to 1961 the pound sterling was the official currency of South Africa. The South African Rand was introduced in 1961. According to Wikipedia: The pound sterling became the standard currency of the Cape of [...]
By Russell Lamberti International trade is one of the most misunderstood issues in economics. The common misguided narrative goes something like this: exports are good and imports are bad, therefore exports should be promoted by industrial policies, while imports should be curtailed as much as possible by industrial policies. This is the basic thinking behind [...]