The Wall Street Journal reports on the "Fed's Unsolved Puzzle: How to Deflate Bubbles" (That's the print version headline, much pithier than online.) I thought I was reading The Onion. There it is, a graph marked "Asset Bubbles," measured, apparently, with interferometer precision.

There is little agreement in the United States at the moment, but when it comes to the Federal Reserve, many Americans feel their central bank is broken, pointless or at worst bad for the country.

If you’re an observer of the political aspect of the Fed policy, you’re likely aware that central bankers like to stay out of the spotlight. Spotlight creates political pressure, something Fed technocrats publicly dislike. With this thought in mind, here’s a look at the federal funds rate overlaid with politics.

Did Ben Bernanke and the Fed save the U.S. economy from disaster in 2008 or did the Fed make things worse? Why did the Fed reward banks that kept reserves rather than releasing funds into the economy? George Selgin of the Cato Institute tries to answer these questions and more in this conversation with EconTalk host Russ Roberts.