US Inflation & the Fed
This week‘s reports showed consumer prices are up more than any time since the 1980’s. This news was the focus of our family’s current event discussion this week. You can read the article from the New York Times here:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/10/business/inflation-cpi-stock-market-news?campaign_id=60&emc=
The article mentions the Federal Reserve, which includes the US central bank that is responsible for helping our country maintain a stable economy, among other duties. After reading the article this week about inflation and rising consumer prices, we looked at the following videos to help us better understand who the Fed is and what they do.
The following are links to those videos:
WHAT IS THE FED?
Fed Functions: Promoting Financial System Stability:
Fed Functions: Fostering Payment and Settlement System Safety and Efficiency:
Fed Functions: Supervising and Regulating Financial Institutions:
Fed Functions: Consumer Protections and Community Development:
Fed Functions: Conducting Monetary Policy:
Just from these short introductory articles and videos, we can see that the business of studying and understanding macroeconomics can be somewhat complicated. One lesson we learned, aside from the duties of the Fed, was that while there may be obvious flaws in the system, sometimes it is best to withhold our judgment until we come to a better understanding of the subject matter. Economics is a subject MANY people have an opinion about, but very few actually have a good understanding of it. When reading and studying economics and news about the economy, checking sources and motives is critical in gaining real and knowledgeable insight.