economics - Tales of a Programmer

economics

A collection of 7 posts

Monetary policy is over-used and over-rated

The fed meets every 6-ish weeks to adjust target fed funds rate, which impacts the interest rate in the entire nation. The event is so tightly monitored and heavily analyzed. Because this single decision is the only method that the US government can affect the US economy directly. And it

Economic Inequity Meets Home as an Investment

Housing affordability is the biggest economic problem facing the young generation. The underlying forces that drive price are always supply and demand. The question of course is why is supply not meeting demand. The US population has been growing at a relatively steady rate of ~1% since the ‘80s. That

Externality of Childcare

The cost for childcare has skyrocketed in the developed world. In the US, the average is ~$300k. But by my calculations, if you live in one of the coastal cities and live in generally upper middle class neighborhoods that cost will be close to the 800k mark. The cost is

2023 Fed Policies

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, triggering a number of subsequent bank runs and shaking the confidence in the financial sector. While the collapse is unfortunate, I believe it is a win for the Fed. And I’d argue that the Fed needs to continue to increase rates. The Fed is on

Perceived Safety

The SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) collapse is a hard lesson on trusting the conventional wisdom on ‘safe’ investments. On paper, they did everything right as a bank - putting the deposits into the US treasury, the safest investment available on the planet. Sure there is the interest rate risk that

Government Chips

The US government is pouring money to produce chips on American soil through the CHIPS act. Government involvement in a market almost always disrupts the supply and demand dictated by the invisible hand. CHIPS act will inflate the semiconductor supply, and it will cause the price to drop sharply. This

White collar recession

The 2022 and 2023 economy was marked by a previously unseen trend. The white collar workers are seeing a downward shift in their compensation and employment prospect while blue collar and front-line workers are experiencing a massive boom - record low unemployment rate and increases in wages. I believe this