MetaFilter posts tagged with Fed

To berate, belittle, and besmirch Ben Bernanke

Joe Beese — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:55:22 -0800

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee... where he’s seeking re-appointment as the Fed’s chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security... “Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money is, as he put it,” Bernanke said. “The money in this case is in entitlements.” Bernanke's bid to avoid joining the ranks of the unemployed is meeting resistance from both the right and the left.

U.S. Census Worker Hanged Himself in Kentucky with the Word "Fed" Scrawled Across His Chest

Slap Factory — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:27:33 -0800

Cancer survivor, teacher, single father, and part-time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead September 12, hanging from a tree with the word "FED" written on his chest. It was actually a suicide. (Previously)

U.S. Census worker found hanged in Kentucky with "FED" scrawled on his chest.

zoomorphic — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:49:51 -0800

Cancer survivor, teacher, single father, and part-time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead September 12, hanging from a tree with the word "FED" written on his chest.

AAA?

Gyan — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:47:35 -0800

Anatomy of a Meltdown - Ben Bernanke and the financial crisis (in one page)

A Look Inside Two Central Banks: The European Central Bank And The Federal Reserve

XMLicious — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:37:00 -0800

A Look Inside Two Central Banks: The European Central Bank And The Federal Reserve [PDF], 2003 article comparing and contrasting their basic structure and management from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's magazine Review (blue ribbon for Most Generic Magazine Title). Author Patricia S. Pollard is now with the IMF. One detail I picked out that is no longer valid is that beginning last month the Fed began paying interest on excess reserve balances. (Originally not scheduled to start until 2011, stepped up due to the financial crisis by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008^.)

Can I pay my taxes with a student loan?

jckll — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:31:56 -0800

After an historic near-collapse (p), a federal bailout to the tune of $85,000,000,000, a second federal bailout to the tune of $37,800,000,000 and one hell of a party (p), the news on A.I.G. just keeps getting better. Now: Fed arbitrage! Paying down a 9% taxpayer loan with a 2% taxpayer loan? Genius!

Fiction, pure fiction.

pjern — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:52:59 -0800

That 700 Billion Dollar number that everyone's talking about? They made it up.

The Fed "hopes" A.I.G.

aheckler — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:16:01 -0800

The Fed has decided to bail out A.I.G. with an $85 billion dollar loan deal, which will result in 80% of the company being owned by the government.

Your Bottom Dollar

chuckdarwin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:06:24 -0800

The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar in 26 years.

The Secret Police and the 35mm Camera

katillathehun — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:15:44 -0800

In 1934, the FE Dzerzhinsky labor commune in Kharkiv began manufacturing a rangefinder camera that copied the German Leica. Though production has long ceased, FED rangefinders are still widely used and collected today. But the FED and its manufacturer have a tarnished history - some of which is due to a work force comprised of children and criminals, and some owed to its namesake: Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police (NSFW).

Cui bono?

Pastabagel — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:41:30 -0800

On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5%. Wall Street aggressively demanded the cut to stop the sub-prime mortgage contagion from triggering a credit crisis among large US and foreign investment banks and the collapse of their over-leveraged hedge funds, which ultimately threatened to drag the US economy into recession. The market rallied this week in response to the Fed's move. But there is no free lunch. Oil rallied also, to an all-time high of $81/bbl. The rate cut shattered the dollar, sending it to new lows against the Euro and to parity with the Canadian dollar. The falling dollar puts pressure on China, whose dollar-pegged currency has attracted the ire of many US politicians, causing China to threaten the US with the "nuclear option" of diversifying its foreign currency reserves away from the dollar. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia refuses to cut its interest rates in lockstep with the US for the first time ever, signaling that it may break its long standing dollar peg as well. In other words, foreign investors who currently own roughly 50% of the publicly-owned portion of the US national debt may flee the US bond markets. Result? We'll probably slide into recession anyway. But there is a silver lining: it turns out that many of those large investment banks and hedge funds were making far more money than anyone thought all along. Confused? Some background: Currency carry trade - how currencies are related to one another How interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, and trade deficits are interrelated How interest rates and bonds are related Peviously 1 2 3 4

A Profile of Alan Greenspan

Gyan — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:30:20 -0800

Alan Greenspan Takes A Bath : a profile of Greenspan

The Euro Effect Iraq Oil and threat to the dollar

thedailygrowl — Tue, 11 Feb 2003 01:12:51 -0800

Is the currency that oil is denominated in the real reason for the Iraq War? "The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 (when the euro was worth around 80 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar's steady depreciation against the euro. (Note: the dollar declined 17% against the euro in 2002.)"

Hammerikaner — Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:54:37 -0800

Someone we trust says something reassuring. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, arguably the most powerful man in the world, blames "infectious greed" for the recent panic-like tail-spins on Wall Street, but says that the economy is on the way to recovery. One comment held that Greenspan was finally able to let out how he feels about what's going on, without shrouding his opinion in economic jibber-jabber.

"For once he really spoke his mind. He usually tends to obfuscate things quite a bit."

But really, how many of you expected Greenspan to say anything other than "the fundamentals are in place for a return to sustained healthy growth"? Does Greenspan actually feel this way? Could it be that he is actually majorly pessimistic, but is using his soothing sweet-song voice and obvious clout and earned respect to somehow buck recent trends? Bush's speech didn't do much for our faltering economy, but will Greenspan's? Can one man's mere words possibly change the course of history? Well?