Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with federalreserve

Who owns the Federal Reserve?

Dragonness — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:49:29 -0800

Who exactly owns the Federal Reserve?

College-level economics competitions?

BusyBusyBusy — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:25:04 -0800

The Federal Reserve just ended its College Federal Reserve Challenge Competition, which I have always enjoyed competing in. What other economics, public policy, or problem solving collegiate-level competitions can you recommend? I would like to keep my current group of team members, but simply switch organizations. Special points for organized competitions that are team work intensive, national, and are related to economics, monetary policy, or public speaking. Please no business plan or case competitions. Thanks, MeFites!

How can the Fed Destroy Money It Created?

Pastabagel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:41:35 -0800

[MonetaryPolicyFilter] In relation to the Fed's huge injection of money yesterday, please explain to me how, if at all, the Federal Reserve can destroy money on its balance sheet in a way that offsets the inflation that normally would result. The Fed's announcement yesterday that is it going to flood the economy with dollars would, in normal circumstances, be horrifically inflationary. But these are not normal normal circumstances. My questions are:

1) Why isn't this inflationary? To what extent have deflationary factors stemming from the credit crisis not yet worked their way into the economy such that they will offset what inflation results?

2) Explain Federal Reserve accounting to me. I sort of understand that the Fed can create this $1 trillion from basically thin air, but can it destroy money just as easily as it creates it?

3) Because the Fed is buying debt and debt-related instruments, can the Fed take the principal and interest payments it receives from these debtors (e.g. the U.S Treasury), and destroy that money just as easily as it created that money? In other words, when Treasury makes interest payments to the Fed on the bonds the Fed bought, can the Fed simply take that money and strike or "disappear" it from it's balance sheet forever?

4) If the Fed can do what is described in (3), is that the mechanism the Fed intends to use to avoid inflation that would normally result from such a huge injection of money? Has the Fed said anything about what it intends to do with the interest payments it receives?

5) Any resources related to Federal Reserve accounting or explanations of how its balance sheet works would be greatly appreciated.

I'm looking for accurate financial answers here, not lunacy or chatfilter. Thanks in advance for your help.

Banking Conspiracy Beach Reading

mecran01 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:18:56 -0800

I'm looking for accessible, credible writing about global banking conspiracies that doesn't lapse into anti-semitism or tinfoil haberdashery. Does such a book exist?

I just wanna know where da gold

c:\awesome — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:36:26 -0800

Has anyone here taken the free tour of the New York Federal Reserve? If so, how was it? Did you get to see lots of gold bullion and cool vaults, or was it more educational and illustrative in nature?

Is the money supply contracting, or expanding?

Pastabagel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:39:51 -0800

FinanceFilter: Is the money supply contracting, or expanding, after netting all the Fed action, bank closures, mortgage defaults, etc? The dollar falling seems to signal a net increase of money supply, but this is inconsistent with the thesis of a credit or liquidity crunch. If the money supply is growing at a slower rate due to tighter lending practices, shouldn't the dollar be rising, even in the face of Fed-rate cutting? Do we know the net expansion or contraction of the money supply due to the combination of rate cuts and mortgage defaults? I understand that Fed rate cuts have the effect of increasing the money supply. I understand that lower rates lower the value of the dollar, because it puts more dollars into existence tomorrow than existed today, i.e. given a constant demand, the increase of supply lowers the price.

The housing boom that peaked in 2005 involved people borrowing money to buy houses that it turns out they could not afford. This borrowing of money expanded the money supply back then. I understand that as people defaulted on their mortgages, the money supply didn't recontract (as the money that was created was spent on the house and put into the system). But as the dominoes fell, and first the mortgage companies, then regional and national banks, then CDO-holding brokerages and hedge funds were hit and stopped lending out, there should have been an attendant lack of money (from mtge payments, etc.) to lend out to future borrowers. So the money supply in the future should be smaller than we expected it to be last year. Shouldn't this cause the dollar to rise (or fall slower)?

In other words, given the 2005-2006 money supply and interest rates, the dollar had a price. But given future lending trends, the money supply growth should be slower, which other things being equal should increase the value of the dollar, right?

Is it possible that the Fed knows quantitatively the extent of the default/CDO worthlessness problem (and future money supply contraction), and isn't revealing publicly what it knows? If so, wouldn't this mean that when the Fed cuts rates, we don't hear about the amount of the money supply contraction that the Fed's inflationary move is supposed to offset, we only hear about the inflationary part of it and conclude therefrom that the money supply is growing too fast?

Are U.S. Government publications in the Public Domain?

jdroth — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:33:05 -0800

Are U.S. Government publications copyrighted or in the Public Domain? More specifically, are Federal Reserve publications copyrighted or in the Public Domain? I'd like to be able to monkey with these comics, but am wary of violating copyright. (I've sent e-mail to the Federal Reserve asking this same question, but am skeptical that I'll receive a timely response.)

Where can I find historical fed statements?

GregX3 — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:47:20 -0800

Every time the US federal reserve meets to decide on changing interest rates, the news articles say something like "in their statement the fed says ...". So my question is where can I find a listing of the statements for the past 10 or 20 years? I'd like to see how the words change over time. My ideal answer if a link to a webpage that has them somehow. But just knowing the official term for these statements or if they get published officially anywhere would be immensly useful.