Monday, December 1, 2008
The Fed Will Buy Treasury Notes and Bonds . . . And Go Public with the PPT?
Bernanke is saying that the Fed is not out of options, even though the Federal Funds rate is only 1%. As Bloomberg writes:
The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates just about as far as they can go, but the U.S. central bank still has plenty of available firepower it could deploy to restore financial markets to normal, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.
The Fed could buy Treasury notes and bonds or agency bonds in a bid to drive yields lower and "spur aggregate demand," Bernanke said. Many analysts refer to such a policy as "quantitative easing," because the Fed would target a specific amount of money to flood into the economy. ***
"The second arrow in the Federal Reserve's quiver - the provision of liquidity - remains effective," he said. "The Fed could purchase longer-term Treasury or agency securities on the open market in substantial quantities. This approach might influence the yields on these securities, thus helping to spur aggregate demand."
The politicians don't want to let the downturn correct itself and let malinvestments work their way through the system. So the government will use all of the weapons in its arsenal to try to prevent a further downturn.
Indeed, Nouriel Roubini predicted several weeks ago that the Fed would buy treasuries. Moreover, Roubini wrote:
The Fed (or Treasury) could even go as far as directly intervening in the stock market via direct purchases of equities as a way to boost falling equity prices. Some of such policy actions seem extreme but they were in the playbook that Governor Bernanke described in his 2002 speech on how to avoid deflation.
Of course, the PPT is already directly buying stocks as a way to boost falling equity prices. But it is possible that the government will go public with such purchases so as to dramatically increase the volume, so that it can more dramatically game the stock market.
2 comments:
→ Thank you for contributing to the conversation by commenting. We try to read all of the comments (but don't always have the time).
→ If you write a long comment, please use paragraph breaks. Otherwise, no one will read it. Many people still won't read it, so shorter is usually better (but it's your choice).
→ The following types of comments will be deleted if we happen to see them:
-- Comments that criticize any class of people as a whole, especially when based on an attribute they don't have control over
-- Comments that explicitly call for violence
→ Because we do not read all of the comments, I am not responsible for any unlawful or distasteful comments.
Without hesitate, I bought eve isk , in the game I can find myself. I feel lonely, but I do not want to talk with anyone, so I buy isk . At present, think the happy day I spend in knight, I am eager to enter it, and buy eve online isk . Own eve online isk , it means that you own the life of happiness. So I will not leave cheap eve isk . It is the origin of the happiness.
ReplyDeleteDo you know that the mabinogi gold, and do you want to know? In the game many palyers need the mabinogi money to up their levels. so they often search where can buy the cheap mabinogi, I think our website is your choice. Many friends told me that in here can buy mabinogi gold, and you will also practice your online games skills. So i hope more and more players come here to buy the mabinogi online gold.
ReplyDelete