Tag: LMI Households

The Family Financial Facility: Urgent, Overdue, Equitable Fed Support for Those Most in Need

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By Karen Petrou

As I write this, thousands of small businesses are clamoring for urgent SBA loans and so many Americans are filing for unemployment insurance that systems have crumpled across the country.  At the same time, the S&P rose over three percent since Monday’s open.  The reason for this dissonance lies in the fact that key parts of the financial market have been bailed out while ordinary borrowers are stuck and then some.  Saving markets won’t salvage the economy – at its root, the U.S. is a consumption-driven economy.  If consumers can’t survive, neither will the economy.  The Fed must add a Family Financial Facility to all those it has crafted for the financial market and it should open one fast.  In this crisis, time is truly money and money is what most families don’t have.

Continue reading “The Family Financial Facility: Urgent, Overdue, Equitable Fed Support for Those Most in Need” →

Why We Need Baby Warbucks: Equities as a Pathway to Equality

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By Karen Petrou

There is an extensive literature on the “unbanked.”  But what of those one might call the “unsecured?”  In previous blog posts, we have pondered “equality banking” and “equality insurance.”  Now, we turn to equality investing, doing so not just because savings at ultra-low interest rates has become the road to ruin, but also because several retail brokers have redesigned entry-level investing with considerable equality upside.  Although caution is always warranted when products are aimed at inexperienced investors, “fractional share” options and no-commission fees could make a meaningful difference for millennial and lower-income households hoping to have enough put aside over time to own a home, ensure a secure retirement, and protect their families from the unexpected. Continue reading “Why We Need Baby Warbucks: Equities as a Pathway to Equality” →

“People’s QE” and Noblesse Oblige

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By Karen Petrou

As the chimera of the post-crisis recovery fades and central bankers find themselves powerless to reverse recession, “people’s quantitative easing” is gaining attention as a tool a growing number of central bankers fancy gives them a new way to wreak their beneficent will.  People’s QE – also known more colorfully as “helicopter money” – means that, despairing of fiscal-policy remedies, central banks print money and then either just give it to the people or invest it in assets they or their bosses think best for equalizing, trade-deficit dropping, climate-restoring, or other all-to-the-good economic growth.  However, it’s not just central bankers casting longing eyes at the ability of central banks to print money – officials ranging from those in the Trump Administration to the Democratic Socialist candidate for President see it as a new way to do what they think are the voter’s bidding without raising the deficit.  This is really, really central banking, but for all its power, it’s very problematic.  QE so far has done little to spur sustained recovery and much to make the U.S. even more unequal.  There’s no reason to believe a people’s QE will be any better. Continue reading ““People’s QE” and Noblesse Oblige” →

America’s Stalwart Savers Get the Sucker Punch

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By Karen Petrou

Recently, I had an op-ed in the Financial Times arguing that negative rates make it even harder for moderate-income households to accumulate wealth.  The reason, I said, is simple:  when savings-deposit or similar rates are ultra-low or even negative in real terms, households that save get poorer and poorer both on their own and in comparison to wealthier households with more sophisticated financial-asset investments.  This might seem irrefutable, but the article generated hundreds of comments.  Many were positive but more than a few countered that lower-income households don’t have savings so savings rates don’t exacerbate economic inequality.  To my mind, this is like saying that poor people are already thin so the fact that they don’t have enough food doesn’t matter. Continue reading “America’s Stalwart Savers Get the Sucker Punch” →

2020’s Equality Policies 101

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By Karen Petrou

On July 18, the Economic Policy Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee turned its attention from the panel’s usual agenda to an unusual hearing on the challenges posed by U.S. economic inequality and what Congress might actually do about them.  For the first time, we saw a shared belief by senators on both sides of the aisle and diverse witnesses that, over the past two decades, Americans have become mired in the income and wealth into which they are born.  This isn’t exactly a news flash – see our prior blog posts on how unequal America has become and our most recent one on the dearth of public resources with which to counter fierce economic downdrafts.  However, it isn’t just that senators finally discovered inequality – it’s that the outline of a bipartisan response took shape.  Thus, for all the difficulty in Congress doing anything about even something as critical as economic inequality, the session was a break-out moment. Continue reading “2020’s Equality Policies 101” →