Republican Presidential Debate: Live Coverage

(Full disclosure: I used to work for the Federal Reserve.) Yeah, Harry, Cruz and Paul made some decent points on the Fed. Both expressed concern about quantitative easing (QE), a concern shared by many mainstream economists. It’s not clear exactly what QE accomplished. Paul, in turn, fairly pointed out that the Fed’s policies may have contributed to rising income inequality. But some of their points were way off. Cruz, for example, decried rising inflation. Inflation? What inflation? The year-over-year change in the consumer price index (CPI) was basically zero in September. The problem with inflation, if there is one, is that it’s been too low.

Ted Cruz and Rand Paul went after the Federal Reserve. Well, they aren’t alone. Only 5 percent of Republicans and 7 percent of Democrats thought the Federal Reserve Board was doing an excellent job in a November 2014 Gallup survey. In fact, 56 percent of Republicans thought the board was doing a poor or “only fair” job.

Ben Carson, in reversing a position on supporting limited subsidies, calls policies like “too big to fail” a bad idea. Does that make him Elizabeth Warren’s new BFF?