Category: US Federal Reserve Bank
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Is the Fed Increasingly Monetizing U.S.Government Debt? / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Axel_Merk
Fed Chair Bernanke vehemently denies Fed “monetizes the debt,” but our research shows the Fed may be increasingly doing so. We explain why and what the implications may be for the dollar, gold and currencies.
What is debt monetization? A central bank is said to monetize a government’s debt if it helps to finance its deficit. The buying of Treasuries by the Federal Reserve is a clear indication that the Fed is doing just that, except that Bernanke argues the motivation behind Treasury purchases is to help the economy, not the government.
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Why the U.S. Fed's 100th Birthday Could Be Its Last / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Money_Morning
Peter Krauth writes: On December 23rd, the Federal Reserve will turn 100 years old.
We can look back on its few successes... but its many failures far outweigh any positives it may have achieved.
What's at stake now is the Fed's future. And it looks bleak.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
What Now for Janet Yellen? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Matt_Machaj
"It deserves emphasis that a 6-1/2 percent unemployment rate and inflation one to two years ahead that is 1/2 percentage point above the Committee's 2 percent objective are thresholds for possible action, not triggers that will necessarily prompt an immediate increase in the FOMC's target rate."
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Sunday, December 01, 2013
Ben Bernanke Financial Crisis Hero? / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. – Alan Greenspan
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid. – John Maynard Keynes
And He spoke a parable to them: "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?" – Luke 6:39-40
Six years ago I hosted my first Thanksgiving in a Dallas high-rise, and my then-90-year-old mother came to celebrate, along with about 25 other family members and friends. We were ensconced in the 21st floor penthouse, carousing merrily, when the fire alarms went off and fire trucks began to descend on the building. There was indeed a fire, and we had to carry my poor mother down 21 flights of stairs through smoke and chaos as the firemen rushed to put out the fire. So much for the advanced fire-sprinkler system, which failed to work correctly.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Janet Yellen Is Close to Making History - Market Psychology Appears Near A Major Turn / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: EWI
Janet Yellen just moved closer to her place in history when the Senate Banking Committee approved her nomination to lead the Federal Reserve. The full Senate is expected to confirm. If so, she will be the first chairwoman in the central bank's 100 year history.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Quantitative Easing is Ben's Rocket to Nowhere / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Peter_Schiff
Herd mentality can be as frustrating as it is inexplicable. Once a crowd starts moving, momentum can be all that matters and clear signs and warnings are often totally ignored. Financial markets are currently following this pattern with respect to the unshakable belief that the Federal Reserve is ready, willing, and most importantly, able, to immediately execute a wind down of its quantitative easing program. How this notion became so deeply entrenched is a mystery, but the stampede it has sparked is getting more violent, and irrational, by the day.
Friday, November 22, 2013
The Federal Reserve's Expanding Omniscience / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Fred_Sheehan
Following is an expanded version of a speech delivered for With Integrity Financial: "Securities and Advisory Services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, a Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser."
The Federal Reserve System is approaching its one hundredth anniversary, a period often dubbed the American Century. The Fed played its part in making it so, which has been characterized by expansion and inflation. The inflation has not been solely in money. We might consider if monetary inflation followed the inflated tendencies of Americans.
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Thursday, November 21, 2013
A Limited Central Bank For Improving Monetary Policy Effectiveness / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
This week’s Outside the Box is unusual, even for a letter that is noted for its unusual offerings. It is a speech from last week by Charles I. Plosser, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia at (surprisingly to me) the Cato Institute’s 31st Annual Monetary Conference, Washington, DC.
I suppose that if Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher had delivered this speech I would not be terribly surprised. I suspect there are some other Federal Reserve officials here and there whoare in sympathy with this view Plosser presents here, but for quite some time no serious Fed official has outlined the need for a limited Federal Reserve in the way Plosser does today. He essentially proposes four limits on the US Federal Reserve:
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Fed on Asset Prices and QE Tapering Next Month / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Bloomberg
St. Louis Federal Reserve president, James Bullard, sat down with Bloomberg Television's Erik Schatzker this morning live from Bloomberg's The Year Ahead: 2014 conference in Chicago and said:
- Taper is 'on the table' for the central bank's next policy meeting and a strong jobs report would increase Dec. Taper chance.
- Says QE as effective as it's ever been and doesn't buy argument that QE has diminishing returns
- Fed seeks to push people into riskier assets
- Fed doesn't directly target asset prices
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Janet Yellen “Pink Dream” and a Coming Economic Nightmare / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
On Monday, former Fed official Andrew Huszar publicly apologized to the American public for his seminal role in executing the Quantitative Easing (QE) program, a program he characterizes as “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time,” and “the largest financial-markets intervention by any government in world history.” While this is a momentous admission from an insider (Mr. Huszar is also a former Wall Street banker), perhaps Mr. Huszar’s most revealing statement concerned the results of QE’s “relentlessly pumping money into the financial markets during the past five years.” He referred to the spectacular rally in financial markets and expressed agreement with the growing belief among expert observers that market conditions had become “bubble-like.”
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013
U.S. Debt Crisis, Evidence Fed Does Not Control Markets / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: EWI
Dear Reader
Ever heard of a wedding crasher? You know -- that distant “cousin” who shows up uninvited, hangs around the open bar all night, chugs down double-everythings and falls on his butt on the dance floor -- all before mysteriously vanishing and leaving his night of indulgence on the father of the bride’s tab.
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Monday, November 18, 2013
Ron Paul - Federal Reserve Bank Steals From The Poor and Gives to The Rich / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last Thursday the Senate Banking Committee held hearings on Janet Yellen's nomination as Federal Reserve Board Chairman. As expected, Ms. Yellen indicated that she would continue the Fed's "quantitative easing" (QE) polices, despite QE's failure to improve the economy. Coincidentally, two days before the Yellen hearings, Andrew Huszar, an ex-Fed official, publicly apologized to the American people for his role in QE. Mr. Huszar called QE "the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time."
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Saturday, November 16, 2013
The Yellen Dilemma - Rebel Now Bagholder / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Jim_Willie_CB
Janet Yellen appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on the approval process, more a production than a process. The veteran economist and banker was given respectful treatment. The good Senators do not wish to be subjected to smear campaigns (see Menendez of New Jersey) or to have their banker donations cut off, better described as relentless bribery toward policy control. After all, Wall Street firms wrote the Financial Regulatory Bill. She will be confirmed for the US Federal Reserve Chair post with some minor heckling by the Senators. Expect Corker (Tennessee), Vitter (Louisiana), and Rand Paul (Kentucky) to pitch in some salty commentary. Yellen fits the job description as an insider, with ample experience inside the Federal Reserve Board and the Council of Economic Advisors, with the correct tribal pedigree. She has carefully scripted her own commentary, with some tacit comprehension of the impossible task of fostering a strong enough economy to sustain itself toward spinning off adequate job growth. Yellen will continue the Zero Interest Rate Policy Forever and a day, since raising rates would kill the economic structure and financial lattice work.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Bernanke's Broken Record / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Michael_Pento
By now we have all heard it many times before...the Fed's mantra about ending QE is starting to sound just like a broken record. Our central bank is aware it has to stop manipulating credit and interest rates some day, and on a basic level it really wants to end that game, but the right time never seems to come. Sort of like someone who wants to quit smoking is often heard exclaiming that this will be his last pack of cigarettes. But a hundred cartons later he's still puffing away. He knows it's wrong, so he vows to stop. However, soon everyone realizes he's just full of smoky-hot air.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Janet Yellen Insolvent Thinking / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Fred_Sheehan
It is possible neither Janet Yellen nor another pretender will fill Bernanke's shoes in January. The odds of such a surprise may be once-in-a-history-of-the-universe, but those keep coming at a faster rate the longer we splurge. Simple Ben has been walking both his bank and the world's financial institutions closer to the cliff. Here, we will look at the precarious position of the Federal Reserve and the far-out financial securities entering the pipeline at an increasing rate.
Monday, November 11, 2013
The Fed’s Dilemma, What Would Yellen Do? / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
The US Senate Banking Committee will hold hearings on Thursday, November 14, on the nomination of Janet Yellen for Federal Reserve chair. There will be the usual softball questions, for example, "Do you think high unemployment is a problem in the United States and if so what do you intend to do about it?" (which allows a senator to express his concern over unemployment and for the nominee to agree that it's a problem). Or the always popular question, "What is the basis under which you would continue to hold interest rates at their current low level?" – as if she would answer anything other than, "Any future policy decision is of course data-dependent" or some variation on that response. Boring.
Sunday, November 03, 2013
How the Fed Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Easy Money / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
In this selection from chapter 19 of Reassessing the Presidency (newly available as an ebook from the Mises Store), Joseph Salerno examines one example of how the Federal Reserve and U.S. presidents work together to expand the size and scope of government.
Friday, November 01, 2013
Alan Greenspan Played Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, Federal Reserve Mainstream Media Propaganda / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve board (August 1987 – January 31, 2006), recently appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Greenspan said he didn’t see the financial crisis coming; he thought bankers would be better stewards of their capital. That was meant to be a apologia of sorts for the Fed’s bungling oversight of the banking system. According to Greenspan, banks didn’t understand their risks, and neither the Fed nor the banks can forecast well. He added that people on Wall Street are “screwy.” Greenspan says he always thought “screwiness” would wash out, since people “would act rationally in their long term self-interest.”
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Documenting the U.S. Federal Reserves Monetary and Economic Failures / Economics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
In their third-quarter Review and Outlook – today's Outside the Box – Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington get right down to telling us why the Federal Reserve's Large Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) program is doomed to failure. (This is a thesis that is dear to my heart, since coauthor Jonathan Tepper and I explore it at length in our just-released book, Code Red.) The Fed scrambled hard and came up with some extraordinary measures to keep the global economy more or less in one piece as the Great Recession unfolded. They had to act fast, and they did; but five years down the road, with sovereign debt balloons swollen near to bursting worldwide, with markets in advanced and emerging nations alike swooning at the mere mention of the word tapering, and with the threat of a major global currency war staring us right in the face, the Fed may have just about r eached the end of its rope. But let's let Lacy and Van explain:
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Bernanke vs. Yellen: A Spooky Economic Outlook? / Economics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Axel_Merk
Fed Chair nominee Janet Yellen will take over where her predecessor Ben Bernanke leaves off. Not just operationally, but also philosophically. To understand where the Fed and the U.S. dollar may be heading, we take a closer look at where Bernanke and Yellen are coming from.