The Federal Reserve is failing to achieve both of its legally mandated goals, full employment and stable prices. And yet it chose on Wednesday to do the absolute least it could do to change that.
The Federal Open Market Committee, at the end of a two-day policy meeting, announced it was going to extend a bond-buying program known as "Operation Twist" for another six months. Under this program, the Fed sells short-term debt and buys long-term debt. The goal is to keep long-term interest rates low to help the economy. There is some debate about how much the program has really helped, but it is likely better than doing nothing. BLOG POSTS  | Robert Reich: Dimon in the Rough: How Wall Street Aims to Keep U.S. Regulators Out of Its Global Betting Parlor
Wall Street can't have it both ways -- too big to fail, and also able to make wild bets anywhere around the world. If Wall Street banks demand a free rein overseas, the least we should demand is they be broken up here. |  | David Karpf: UVA Board's Lazy Business Sense
They've called for a leap into online learning, but demonstrate no understanding of that field. They use the popular language of disruption theory without understanding any of its mechanisms. This would make a good comedy if we were viewing it in the distant past. Instead it's a tragedy. |  | Joe Newman: Bill Allows Wall Street to Regulate Itself (Yes, It's as Bad as It Sounds)
Incredibly, even while we're still clawing our way out of the hole that Wall Street's greed put us in, there are some in Congress who are trying to rig the system in the financial industry's favor. |  | Robert E. Scott: Alabama's Anti-immigrant Laws Put More Than 13,000 Good Export Jobs at Risk
Respect for the civil and labor rights of all workers, both documented and undocumented, is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing if Alabama wants to keep and expand its exports to Mexico and the jobs they support. |  | Montserrat DomÃnguez: The Day That Greece Rescued Europe
The Greeks have deactivated the switch that threatened to blow Europe sky high. Antonis Samaras's New Democracy party victory in Greece does not in and of itself solve Athens' problems, nor those plaguing the rest of Europe's capitals. The boxer is still on the ropes, but the bell has been rung, ending the round; and that gives Europe time to recover, though it will have to keep fighting. In addition this week, if seen as part and parcel to what happened in Greece, the result of France's legislative elections and the majority that President Hollande now boasts both act as a serious warning to Angela Merkel in Germany. The message is clear: we are willing to go forward, but the pernicious austerity strategy that is pushing us into the abyss must be reconsidered. | | MOST POPULAR ON HUFFINGTONPOST.COM |
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