Alex J Pollock Alex J Pollock

Since 2008, Monetary Policy Has Cost American Savers about $4 Trillion

With inflation running at over 6 percent and interest rates on savings near zero, the Federal Reserve is delivering a negative 6 percent real (inflation-adjusted) return on trillions of dollars in savings. This is effectively expropriating American savers’ nest eggs at the rate of 6 percent a year. It is not only a problem in 2021, however, but an ongoing monetary policy problem of long standing. The Fed has been delivering negative real returns on savings for more than a decade. It should be discussing with the legislature what it thinks about this outcome and its impacts on savers.

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Letters to the editor Alex J Pollock Letters to the editor Alex J Pollock

The Price of Inflation, Now and in the Future

Your excellent editorial “Biden Has an Inflation Problem” (Aug. 12) points out that average real wages have fallen for seven months in a row. In other words, the Biden inflation has reduced the real wages of workers in every month that he has been in office. This confirms yet again that high inflation is a way of cutting wages by sneaky central-bank means.

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