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Wall Street, explained for Main Street

Policy

The Federal Reserve, Congress, the courts and the rules they write.

The Eccles Building, headquarters of the Federal Reserve Board, Washington
Policy

The Price of Borrowed Money

The Federal Reserve raised its main interest rate by a quarter of a point, to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent. It was the first increase in three years. The reason they gave was inflation.

September 16, 2026 2 min read
The Supreme Court of the United States at dusk
Policy

The Court Took the Tariff Pen Away

By 6 to 3, the Supreme Court said a 1977 emergency law does not let a president tax imports. The Court did not say who gets the money back.

February 20, 2026 2 min read
The container ship NYK Themis at the Port of Los Angeles. Tariffs are paid on goods like these as they enter the country
Policy

The Tax You Could Not See

The year opened with an import tax already in the price of ordinary goods. Most people never saw the line. They saw the total.

January 31, 2026 2 min read

From America 250

The full series
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, in his official portrait
America 250, 2008

Zero

In December 2008, the Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to zero, and then began buying trillions of dollars of bonds. Borrowing became almost free for seven years. Saving earned almost nothing.

Article 235 of 250 3 min read
America 250, 2008

The Rescue Authority

In October 2008, Congress gave the Treasury $700 billion to stop the financial system from collapsing. The first vote failed and the market fell 778 points. The second passed, and the money went first to the banks.

Article 234 of 250 3 min read
America 250, 1971

The Window Closes

On Sunday night, August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon told Americans he was ending the dollar’s link to gold. He called it temporary. It became the money system the world still uses.

Article 201 of 250 3 min read
The Gold Room at the Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the 1944 agreements were signed
America 250, 1944

The Dollar at the Center

In July 1944, delegates from 44 countries met at a hotel in the White Mountains and built a money system around the American dollar. It lasted 27 years, and the dollar never left the center.

Article 178 of 250 3 min read
Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, August 14, 1935
America 250, 1935

The Tax That Was Also a Promise

The Social Security Act of 1935 taxed wages to pay pensions to the old. It began by leaving out about half of all workers, and it became the largest program the federal government runs.

Article 165 of 250 2 min read
Headquarters of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Washington
America 250, 1933

The Insured Deposit

The Banking Act of 1933 promised that the government would stand behind ordinary bank deposits. The banks fought it and the president doubted it. It ended the age of bank runs for half a century.

Article 157 of 250 2 min read
A local newspaper notice of the national bank holiday, Allentown, Pennsylvania, March 1933
America 250, 1933

The Week the Banks Went Quiet

On his second day in office, Franklin Roosevelt closed every bank in the country. A week later they began to reopen, and Americans carried their cash back in.

Article 156 of 250 3 min read
Enslaved workers loading rum barrels in a distillery on Antigua, from William Clark's Ten Views in the Island of Antigua, 1823
America 250, 1733

The Rum That Started a Revolution

The Molasses Act of 1733 put a heavy tax on foreign molasses and almost nobody paid it. The crisis came thirty years later, when Britain cut the tax and started collecting.

Article 015 of 250 2 min read
A South-East View of the City of Boston in North America, engraved by John Carwitham around 1731
America 250, 1700

The Smuggling Superhighway

When legal trade was forced through England, colonial merchants built a second trade beside it. By 1700 that second trade was a business, not an exception.

Article 014 of 250 2 min read
Green tobacco leaf hung to cure in a drying barn
America 250, 1640

The Leaf That Became Money

England did not send the colonies enough coin. Virginia made tobacco do the work of coin, and then spent decades fighting the consequences.

Article 007 of 250 2 min read

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