Do you actually know how this works?
Ten questions on the three subjects this site covers. Pick an answer and the explanation appears, with a link to the page it comes from. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere; the score lives in your browser until you reload.
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The Federal Reserve sets one interest rate directly. Which?
It sets a target range for the federal funds rate, which applies to overnight lending of reserves between banks. Everything else moves in response, or does not.
Read: Federal funds rate → -
A 30-year mortgage is priced most closely off which of these?
Mortgages track the 10-year Treasury plus a spread. That is why a mortgage rate can rise on the day the Fed cuts.
Read: Why mortgage rates go up → -
Inflation falls from 6 percent to 3 percent. What happened to prices?
Falling inflation is slower price rises, not falling prices. Prices actually falling is deflation, which is a different and generally worse condition.
Read: Inflation → -
How many votes does the Fed chair hold on the committee that sets rates?
One of twelve. The chair's weight comes from the press conference, the testimony and the agenda, not from the ballot.
Read: Who is the Fed chair → -
What is the difference between the deficit and the debt?
The deficit is a single year's gap between what the government takes in and what it spends. The debt is every past deficit, added up and still owed.
Read: Debt vs. deficit → -
What does raising the debt ceiling authorise?
It permits Treasury to borrow to pay bills Congress has already run up. It is not a decision about future spending.
Read: Debt ceiling → -
A continuing resolution does what?
It keeps agencies funded, usually at the previous year's levels, for a stated period, because the twelve appropriations bills were not passed in time.
Read: Continuing resolution → -
What does budget reconciliation change about passing a bill in the Senate?
Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, so a simple majority carries them. The price is the Byrd rule, which strips provisions that are not primarily budgetary.
Read: Budget reconciliation → -
What are the two halves of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate?
Congress gave the Fed both, and they can pull in opposite directions. Nothing in the mandate mentions the stock market or the exchange rate.
Read: The dual mandate → -
A basis point is how much?
One hundredth of one percent. A quarter-point rate move is 25 basis points; the unit exists so that "a rise of 0.25 percent" cannot be confused with a 0.25 percent relative change.
Read: Basis point →
Every answer here is explained somewhere on this site. If one of them surprised you, the link under it is the place to start. Definitions live in the glossary; the same ones in question form are on questions answered.