#MonetaryPolicy201 is a monthly series about the basics of monetary policy. It’s a “201” series because I will be grounding the basics of monetary policy on their largely forgotten legal foundations. The
Pavlos Roufos is a Greek political economist living in Berlin. He has a PhD in political science from Kassel University. He works on central banks, constitutional law and European integration from the 1920s
Over the years I’ve gotten inquiries about taking on institutional subscriptions. Those requests have come from both academics and employees at for-profit businesses- Institutional subscriptions mean that a firm or a library
Announcement: I'm putting on an end of year sale. For just 55 dollars a year you can subscribe and receive premium pieces of Notes on the Crises. This also helps support
For the past year and a half I’ve increasingly focused on using FOIA to scrutinize the Federal Reserve. Before I unveil the crown jewel of what I’ve accomplished so far, I think it's worth stepping back and saying why I’ve undertaken such a broad project.
Perhaps the most shocking thing I have come across in the minutes is that the Federal Reserve very nearly got rid of its own emergency powers.
The Federal Reserve should create a Hurricane crisis facility. Massive hurricanes are "unusual and exigent circumstances" and should be treated as such.
An update on my major project of the moment: launching my 30,000 page database of FOIA minutes. All of the minutes have been uploaded to my website, but generating an accessible and
Yet, as successful as I have been at using FOIA regarding the Federal Reserve, I didn’t have the biggest Freedom of Information victory against the Federal Reserve System in 2023 (that had to wait for this year). Not by a long shot.
Nathan Tankus reveals seven secret books authored by a very important Federal Reserve general counsel that he unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act request
Nathan Tankus writes about a secret phone call between Paul Volcker and Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns to save the Treasury from debt ceiling driven default
Nathan Tankus covers his latest FOIA finding from the Federal Reserve regarding its response to Treasury debt ceiling struggles in 1968