Inquiring minds want to know. Gold is certainly topical these days. A roaring bull market tends to have that effect. What does the Federal government plan on doing with its stash? Official U.S. reserves are by far the world’s largest. The combination of record prices and a massive 8,000-ton national nest egg inspire a number of questions, some of which I explore in a new article published in the November issue of The Atlantic magazine. Here’s the online version of Uncle Sam’s Mysterious Hoard.

It’s not often that an economist is nominated to the Fed, with Senate confirmation still up in the air, and the nominee becomes the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics. In fact, it’s never happened. It remains to be seen whether winning the Nobel helps or hurts in terms of joining the Fed. But there it is: MIT professor Peter Diamond is awaiting the Senate’s yea or nay. While he’s wondering if the government will be his next employer, he’s picked up what would appear to be a career-boosting prize. Diamond, along with Dale Mortensen (Northwestern University) and Christopher Pissarides (London School of Economics), yesterday were awarded the Nobel in economics for their research on the labor market.

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