Today we are going to talk about the Federal Reserve.
While I am aware that certain percentage of you have now clinched your fists in rage and are mumbling about the vast global conspiracy, the Illuminati, and the trilateral commission, and another segment of you are yelling about gold standards and the evils of fiat currency, let’s table all those conversations for another day.
The Federal Reserve may not be the best way to manage our nation’s money supply, but it’s what we have and what we will have for a very long time to come.
Whatever you think of the Fed and their policies, you cannot debate this one thing: when it comes to collecting and distributing economic information, they are unsurpassed by anything on the planet. They have tremendous resources, and they do not hesitate to share all that data with taxpayers.
I pay very close attention to reports from the Fed for the simple reason that they have more data than anyone else. Reading the Beige Book and other informative releases from the central bank gives a much better picture of the US economy than all the talking heads and pen-wielding experts combined.
We can listen to the chorus of doom and gloom or the cheerleaders who predict easy money and vast fortunes ahead, or we can pay attention to what the actual data is telling us.
The data is giving us a crystal clear overview of how banks, as well as individual and business loans, are fairing.
