Wikinvest Wire

The Fed's new bailout website

Monday, February 23, 2009

At a time like this, it's natural to wonder just what they are teaching aspiring young economists in college. Sure, they can look in the text books to learn about "traditional" policy tools such as manipulating short-term interest rates, but what about "non-traditional" tools?

Well, help is on the way.

Earlier today, the Federal Reserve announced a new addition to their already quite extensive website - "Credit and Liquidity Programs and the Balance Sheet" - that includes all kinds of information about the many liquidity and credit facilities launched in recent months.
IMAGE It also contains details of the Fed's much-discussed, ever-expanding, balance sheet, along with charts and graphs that may or may not answer any of the questions that have been asked about exactly what kind of collateral they are buying and from whom - questions that have not been answered to the satisfaction of some news organizations that have led to lawsuits.

Here's the chart of their total balance sheet assets over time.
IMAGE Not having been through the material that is now available, this assessment may be a bit premature, but, my guess is that this probably isn't going to help out all that much in making the nation's central bank more "transparent".

3 comments:

Shawn said...

What's hilarious is that Barney Frank has no idea how the Federal Reserve balance sheet works and how they print money with fractional reserve lending.

The central bank version of LIAR LOANS.

Anonymous said...

Their list of policies doesn't yet extend to "Invade Poland". But if I were Canada, I'd be worried.

Anonymous said...

Yes, worried here in Canada. A Goldman Guy was appointed head of the Bank Of Canada. Apparently, Canada can't grow any of its own FInanca Guys. It must have a guy from Failed Wall Street to run its economy.

And then there's the Prime Minister, a Gingrich, Reagan throwback who some refer to as Adolph Harper.

But watch out we do have highly trained and ready Hockey Goons, Canada's greatest export!

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