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The House Financial Services Committee approved a measure proposed by Representative Ron Paul of Texas that would allow Congress to order audits of all the Fed’s lending programs as well as of its basic decisions to set monetary policy by raising or lowering interest rates.

If the measure becomes law, it would expose the Federal Reserve to far more political pressure than it has faced for decades. Fed officials have adamantly opposed the measure, saying it would undermine the central bank’s political independence and gravely threaten its credibility as a bulwark against inflation.

Fed officials have argued that global investors would immediately become more skeptical about the central bank’s willingness to fight inflation by raising interest rates, which in turn would force the Fed to raise interest rates higher to accomplish it owns goals to keep prices stable. The result, they have warned, could be both higher inflation and slower growth.

But Mr. Paul and his supporters argued that the measure would do nothing to undermine the central bank’s independence. Its only purpose was to force the Fed to be more transparent and accountable to the public.

In a surprising display of political rebellion, about half the Democrats present and all the Republicans voted for Mr. Paul’s bill instead of a compromise measure drafted by Representative Mel Watt, Democrat of North Carolina.

1) The Fed's balance sheet is now overflowing with assets it cannot sell: Treasury securities (politically difficult to unload in large numbers) and toxic assets (no one wants to buy them).

2) The Fed can’t keep buying more US debt (ie: treasuries and mortgage debt) without expanding its balance sheet (essentially printing more money).

Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.

NY times
19/11/09
Panel Votes to Broaden Oversight of the Fed
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/busin ... f=business



Le vent tourne et la colère gronde.

Reserve Bank credit 2,189,831 -1,552

Federal agency debt securities (2) 153,625 + 1,888
Mortgage-backed securities (4) 854,872 + 9,180

Term auction credit 101,009 - 8,447

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet hit a new all time record of $2.2 Trillion in assets, after an $11 billion spike in MBS and Agency purchases week over week.

Maiden Lane I and Maiden Lane II were at $26.4 and $15.8 billion, while Tim Geithner's Goldman rescue package better known as Maiden Lane III came at $22.9 billion.

AIG will retain control of AIA Aurora LLC and ALICO Holdings LLC, and the FRBNY will
have certain consent, disposition, and conversion rights with respect to its preferred interests.

Total factors supplying reserve funds 2,249,500M$ + 22,778M$

Mortgage-backed securities (4) 873,984M$ + 19,774M$

A vigilant reader, who combed through the backup of today's Consumer Credit G.19 statement points out a flagrant and obvious error in the Fed's data. While luckily the data impact is not major (at most $4 billion, which in our day and age is a pithy 50% of Goldman's FICC trading desk bonus), the implication that the Fed does not check its work in something as critical as one of the core data series (or at least it used to be until a few machines took over the market, to whom, as today indicated, a record credit contraction somehow ended up being a positive event) is very, very troubling.

Je vais poser une question qui peut etre stupide : que représente 1T $ par rapport aux différentes masse monétaires des USA ?

Parce qu'il me semble que la question est plus ou moins là, non ?
-Si ce Tera $ est négligeable, c'est sans importance réelle
-Mais si ce Tera $ est important, ca veut dire que le dollar ne vaut, en fait, d'ores et deja plus grand chose par "dilution".

Par contre, là ou j'ai un doute, c'est ce à quoi il faut comparer : une masse monétaire, ca parait évident, mais laquelle ?
On pourrait la comparer à la M3 qui comprend les crédits (si j'ai bon souvenir), mais comme le crédit était déjà devenu fou à l'étape antérieure, cela n'est pas forcément opportun.

Comme prévu également, la Fed a annoncé qu'elle mettrait un terme à son programme de rachat d'actifs adossés à des crédit immobiliers à la fin du mois du mars, tout en soulignant qu'elle continuerait à surveiller de près les perspectives économiques afin de voir si d'autres mesures de soutien étaient nécessaires.

The Federal Reserve will be required to identify the names of banks that could have collapsed if not for the central bank's emergency lending, a federal appeals court said Friday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled on Friday that the Fed needs to disclose documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by Bloomberg L.P. and other news organizations. "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options for reconsideration or appeal," said Fed spokeswoman Barbara Hagenbaugh.

The most audacious monetary experiment in modern history ended on April Fools' Day. America must walk without crutches, on gangrenous legs.

The US Federal Reserve has completed its purchase of $1.7 trillion (£1.1bn) of mortgage securities, agency debt and US Treasuries, the conjuring trick of "credit easing" that allowed Ben Bernanke to create stimulus equal to 12pc of GDP.

@wotan & ventus,

j'ai bien vu le mouvement du 10ans US. Mais Bernanke va t'il reellement arrêter le quantitative easing ?

laloupe

Pour aider les neuneus dans mon genre à comprendre : http://vimeo.com/2606496