Paul Krugman has started a YouTube channel. He seems uncertain about keeping it going, but what he says here about the Trump administration’s response to a report from the New York Federal Reserve is worthy of a debut video.
Based on LG’s pre-tariff sale price for my new washer and dryer, I estimate I paid at least $50 more per unit than I would have a year ago. Something else that’s happening at the Fed is, in contrast, undoubtedly welcomed by Trump’s people. The easing of mortgage regulations.
The decline in banks issuing mortgages was a reason why I moved most of my retirement money out of the bank where it had been. As a savings bank, it was dropped by the Depositor’s Insurance Fund, which guarantees accounts above the FDIC limit of $250,000. The bank wasn’t in any sort of legal trouble, it had simply grown too big to remain within the DIF’s “too small to fail” limit.
Home mortgages and small business loans are the life blood of that bank. I became concerned that the economic changes resulting from the Financial Crisis of 2008 — conditions that should have favored small community banks — and later the Covid pandemic, could reverse that bank’s growth. If it were ever to run into financial trouble, my retirement money would be at risk. So, being cautious (my definition of conservative) with my money, I moved more of it to another Massachusetts chartered savings bank that is still a DIF member.