Federal Reserve Transparency Petition Update: Success

We are happy to announce that the HR 1207 “Audit The Fed” Bill is now one large step closer to reality, having garnered the necessary 218 co-sponsors to ensure passage. It has, in fact, 222 co-sponsors as of today and more are appearing by the hour. Please click here for the official press release. Many [...]

Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Update: Week Of June 10

Note: this analysis does not include $153 billion in various (presumably non counterfeit) bearer bonds that the Federal reserve will now never be able to monetize. Total Federal Reserve balance sheet assets for the week of June 3 of $2,067 billion consisting of: Securities held outright: $1,134 billion (an increase of $19.1 billion, resulting from [...]

Investigators Say Fed Threatened Bank CEO

The Federal Reserve threatened to force the ouster of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if he didn’t follow through with plans to buy Merrill Lynch & Co., Republicans said Wednesday after reviewing internal documents. Republicans also said there was evidence that the government tried to restrict information related to the merger from being publicly [...]

Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed Bill Passes 218 Cosponsors

We wanted to make sure you were the first to know that your hard work and dedication has resulted in Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, HR 1207, gaining the support of a majority of the House of Representatives! Just moments ago, Dr. Paul’s congressional office issued a press release announcing that HR 1207 had [...]

Ron Paul’s Audit the FED Act, HR 1207 and S 604

HR 1207, Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act is up to 207 co-sponsors, close to a majority. So… what to do next? This February, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 to audit the FED. When I first reported on it in March, privately I was quite ecstatic [...]

A Regional Central Banker Blows the Whistle

Thomas Hoenig is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In a recent speech, he laid out a scenario for what the Federal Reserve ought to do and what the U.S. government ought to do, and what will happen if they refuse. You can read it here. They will refuse. He did [...]

Jim Grant: The Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited

All the more reason for readers to support the Fed Transparency Petition. Must Watch. (link here) Some key soundbites: “If the Fed examiners were set upon the Fed’s own documents—unlabeled documents—to pass judgment on the Fed’s capacity to survive the difficulties it faces in credit, it would shut this institution down.““The Fed is undercapitalized in [...]

For Your Evening Amusement

The clip below demonstrates what happens when one of Ben Bernanke’s dollar printers gets a PC Load Letter error. And for the musically inclined, Marla is DJing the evening set at Radio Zero Hedge. – Read more….

Fed Transparency Petition Update

Readers curious to know how the Fed transparency petition is progressing will be happy to know that Ron Paul’s HR 1207 proposed bill, “The Federal Reserve Transparency Act” now has 206 co-sponsors. Alan Grayson’s democratic canvassing for bill support has proven quite successful. A mere 2 weeks ago there was just 165 cosponsors, mostly republicans. [...]

House Committee Subpoenas Federal Reserve Over BofA-Merrill

Developing Story from Bloomberg. Please, please, please let Maxine Waters do the interrogation. More from the WSJ: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), has asked the Fed to turn over documents requested by the panel last week. The documents requested include emails to and from Chairman [...]

Fed Seeks Ways to Stop Banks From Taking Too Much Risk

The Federal Reserve is beefing up its supervision of the nation’s largest banks and developing proposals to ensure that lavish executive compensation doesn’t encourage excessive risk-taking, a Fed governor said Monday. Daniel Tarullo, an expert on financial industry regulation, said Federal Reserve officials plan to scrutinize giant banks with an eye toward practices that might [...]

Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Update: Week Of June 3

Total Federal Reserve balance sheet assets for the week of June 3 of $2,065 billion consisting of: Securities held outright: $1,114 billion (an increase of $6.2 billion, resulting from $8.6 billion in new Treasury purchases and a $3 billion decrease in Fed Agency Debt – this is the first agency decrease since the fed started [...]

Banks Borrow More From Fed in Past Week

Banks boosted borrowing from the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program over the past week, while investment firms took a pass for the third straight week. The Fed on Thursday said commercial banks averaged $41.9 billion in daily borrowing over the week that ended Wednesday. That was up from $38.2 billion in the week ending May [...]

Volatility Jumps as Fed’s Intentions Questioned

Volatility is back in the Treasury market. Ever since doubts emerged over the U.S.’s triple-A ratings outlook, the bond market has been whipped around as investors question the Federal Reserve’s ability to keep bond yields under control. While that’s not good news for the economy and could cause headaches for policy makers, it could turn [...]

US Needs to Address Deficits: Bernanke

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday the United States needs to begin efforts to restore “fiscal balance” after huge deficit spending to combat the economic crisis. Bernanke, in comments to lawmakers, said the massive deficits are needed to fire up the economy but that with costs growing for retirement expenses, “we will not [...]

Federal Reserve Buys $7.5 Billion of Treasuries in Coupon Pass

The Federal Reserve bought $7.5 billion of Treasuries maturing between May 2016 and February 2019 as part of the central bank’s effort to reduce lending rates and lift the world’s largest economy out of recession. Ten of the 18 securities listed for possible purchase were acquired, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York [...]

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Operations

As recently many questions have arisen as to the involvement of the Federal Reserve in bond (and other) markets, I present the data provided by the Federal Reserve of New York regarding the Fed’s Open Market Operations. The charts below summarize the individual (single-serving if you will) and cumulative purchases across both Treasuries and Agencies. [...]

Even Bloomberg Openly Ridiculing Tim Geithner Now

For all with access to Bloomberg, run LTRA… For those who don’t have bberg handy, here is the screen capture of Bloomberg’s perfidious sense of humor. Judging by the market, Bloomberg is actively developing its next critical “cointoss” function: [PPT] GO. Read more….

New York Fed Drowns Hope For Green Shoots In Commercial Real Estate

Til Schuermann, VP of Financial Intermediation at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is testifying today on issues in Commercial Real Estate, and his prepared remarks essentially drown the prospect of green shoots in the context of CRE. The same cannot be said for loan demand. The SLOOS reports that the net fraction of [...]

Weekend Reading

Ben Bernanke’s commencement speech at the Boston College School of Law (FRB) Obushma-Biney in the home of the frightened (FT) Geithner picking the best (for Wall Street) of all derivative worlds (Bloomberg) S&P: Britain will be the next stage of the global crisis (Telegraph) What are payrolls telling us about the equity market? (Financial Sense [...]

« Previous Page — Next Page »