Federal Reserve and the Huge Tsunamis of Money
I was surprised that Barron's reported that the banks show their Total Reserves fell from $896 billion to $848 billion, which is a simple math problem that seems custom-made for my abilities in that regard.
And to prove it, I deftly subtract one from the other and get - voila! - $48 billion, which is not only factually correct, but more than enough to quiet any naysayer saying, "Nay, I say!" as regards my computational skills.
Then, to add that essential touch of surreal whimsy that seems to permeate all things fiscal and monetary these days, I additionally note that not only did Total Reserves go down in the banks by $48 billion to $848 billion, but I will note that Total Reserves one year ago were a miniscule $41 billion! Hahahaha! They fell last week by more than they totaled one year ago! Hahaha!
In fact, Required Reserves are only now starting to rise from "nearly zero" to "slightly more than zero," and banks are now "required" to have a miniscule $56 billion in reserves against their zillions of dollars in assets and liabilities, while meanwhile, a mere couple of lines up on the same Barron's page, the Federal Reserve reports that "Reserves F. R. banks" went down by an astonishing $125 billion last week to $692.6 billion! Wow! Big move!
These huge tsunamis of money, joining all the other tsunamis of money sloshing back and forth around the banks and the world, around and around, getting everything all wet, are not only ruining the patio furniture and making a mess of everything, but are such that even the World Bank has revised its estimates, and now says the global economy will contract by 2.9% this year instead of their previous forecast of 1.7%, which is an error of 41%.
Well, when I show up at an executive board meeting sporting a 41% error on a forecast I made just a few months ago, all I hear is people all demanding that I be fired or killed for bringing the company to the edge of bankruptcy and ruination, which of course I seize upon to show that precision economic forecasting is a ridiculous exercise everywhere you go, especially since economics is, just as the Austrian school of economics always said it was, human behavior with a huge random element, which is not even to mention Taleb's Black Swan Hypothesis of unforeseen catastrophic events making a complete mockery of using bell- curve probabilities to forecast long-term expected results.
It's like expecting, but not getting, what you would expect from the statement from the Federal Open Market Committee after their recent meeting, which apparently showed that they are incredulous of the generally low level of intelligence of Americans, which they demonstrated when they said, "As previously announced, to provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve will purchase a total of up to $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt by the end of the year," which I figure would be $238 billion a month for the remaining six months of the year, which would normally make my heart start fibrillating with fear at the inflationary implications of such irresponsible monetary policy.
My snotty interpretation is that by saying "as previously announced" they mean, "we say again so that you can't say we didn't tell you that you morons are sitting there while we at the Federal Reserve are going to buy up the losses of our friends at a rate of $12,500.00 for every one of the 100 million non-government workers in the USA, which is admittedly a lot of money at $12,500.00 each, but which is almost certainly grossly understated so that we are going to keep coming back for more and more and more! Hahaha! Suckers!!"
Whether or not they meant that, it turns out that I was right, and this is all part of some nefarious plan, as they later slipped in, almost as an afterthought, that "In addition, the Federal Reserve will buy up to $300 billion of Treasury securities by autumn," which made my eyes pop out painfully when I realized that this means that we are suddenly talking about buying up almost $350 billion a month in worthless assets and handing over the cash to the lucky current holders (who are making out like bandits!) of those toxic assets, which means that these guys will suddenly have a lot of cash in their pockets looking for a home, and the prices of something, or some things, are going to go up as this $350 billion of new cash Per Freaking Month (PFM) gets plowed into "investing" in some asset or another.
Until next time,
The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Related Articles:
- Fearing the Elimination of Reserve Requirements
- Federal Reserve Boosted Total Fed Credit
- Federal Reserve Has Destroyed the Economy
- Federal Reserve Literally Killing Our Money
- Federal Reserve Wants to Debase the U.S. Dollar
About the Author
Richard Daughty is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group, serving the financial and medical communities, and the editor of The Mogambo Guru economic newsletter - an avocational exercise to heap disrespect on those who desperately deserve it.
Comment by Tom on 8 July 2009:
When are you lot going to get it that the "tsunami" of money is a ripple in a pond compared to the money lost on real estate and shares in the last year. There is far too little debt being taken on to adjust the loss of spending power in the private sector. Let it rip!!
Comment by daniel on 22 July 2009:
Cost Of Bailout Hits A Whopping $24 Trillion Dollars
$80,000 for every American
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, July 20, 2009
According to the watchdog overseeing the federal government’s financial bailout program, the full exposure since 2007 amounts to a whopping $23.7 trillion dollars, or $80,000 for every American citizen.
The last time we were able to get a measure of the total cost of the bailout, it stood at around $8.5 trillion dollars. Eight months down the line and that figure has almost tripled.
The $23.7 trillion figure comprises “about 50 initiatives and programs set up by the Bush and Obama administrations as well as by the Federal Reserve,” according to the Associated Press.
In testimony which will be delivered to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow, Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the TARP, will tell Congress that “the Treasury Department has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations aimed at making the TARP program more accountable and transparent.”
According to Barofsky, taxpayers are in the dark as to who has received the money and what they are doing with it.
As we have repeatedly highlighted, the destination of some $2 trillion in TARP funds was the subject of a lawsuit filed by Bloomberg late last year after the Fed refused to disclose the recipients. The suit is still ongoing as Bloomberg attempts to discover names of private financial institutions that received the money.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
The American people will ultimately pick up the tab as their dollar is devalued because the Fed lends the money from its own balance sheet or essentially just prints more money, as a San Francisco Chronicle article explained last year.
Wages will not keep pace with inflation and if we add to the equation the raft of new taxes being introduced by the Obama administration, the consequences are clear – another lowering of the living standard for millions of middle class Americans.
Meanwhile, Henry Paulson, one of the chief architects of the bailout and the man who committed financial terrorism by threatening the Congress with martial law and food riots if they didn’t pass the initial TARP package, brazenly pockets $200 million in Goldman Sachs profits tax free while handing out billions in ill-gotten gains to his bankster buddies, all this after he pulled a bait and switch by changing the entire focus of the bailout from buying up toxic debt to giving money directly to financial institutions.
We dread to think what the bailout figure will be in another eight months. Will it triple again to $70 trillion dollars? How about $100 trillion dollars?
The only thing that can bring an end to the wanton looting is Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed, which has received overwhelming support in the House but is being blocked by the bought and paid for traitors in the Senate who would rather see a continuation of the grand larceny rather than real accountability and transparency.
Comment by daniel on 22 July 2009:
inflation eat your heart out famin and death will be our friends the gov loves us