Image via J.C. Penney

BY MEGAN MOLLMANN – MEDILL REPORTS

On the heels of the Fed’s news that the economy is “leveling out,” July retail sales dropped 0.1 percent from June, said the U.S. Department of Commerce Thursday.

Total retail sales for July were $342.3 billion, an 8.3 percent decline from July of [...]

Flickr.com/David C. Pearson

BY MEGAN MOLLMANN - MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The stock market is making gains. Housing sales are showing signs of life. And the Federal Open Market Committee is tweaking its rhetoric, saying “economic activity is leveling out” in a statement Wednesday.

Cautioning that the economy is likely to stay weak for some time, the FOMC kept the

via The Federal Reserve Board

BY KELLEN HENRY – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The economic story in the Midwest is the same the one we’re hearing across most of the country — The economy is weak, but it’s no longer in free-fall.

According to The Beige Book, the report on current economic conditions released [...]

 Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke/Flickr

BY DEB WEINSTEIN — MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Speaking via satellite to an audience of over 200 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s annual Bank Structure and Competition conference, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke outlined what he called “lessons of the crisis.”

The major lesson: Oversight [...]

(Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

BY DEB WEINSTEIN — MEDILL REPORTS

The number of unemployed swelled to 8.5 percent in March, up from 8.1 percent in February, according to the latest report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The

BY MARJORIE KORN — MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Last week Alan Greenspan, former Maestro and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said his mea culpas for allowing interest rates to stay so low for so long, making lending and borrowing too easy.

Those with a taste for irony got their fill [...]

BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The Federal Reserve has released the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting that took place on August 5. The thing about the FOMC minutes is that they normally don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

At its policy-setting meetings, the [...]

BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke are willing to try anything to solve the financial mess, but for every solution, it seems there is a dead end.

There was the Paulson “Blueprint” for regulatory reform, which so far has gone nowhere but to a committee hearing. Paulson wanted to [...]

BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The Federal Open Market Committee has spoken and the target Federal Funds rate will remain at 2 percent for now.

Yet, it seems that the Fed is going to get tougher on inflation going forward. While Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, was the only one to [...]

BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, that is.

This morning, Elizabeth Duke was sworn in as the sixth member of the board, announced by the Federal Reserve this morning. Duke was previously senior executive vice president and chief operating [...]