The Fed to the Rescue? $630 Billion Pumped in to the Economy

by Damozel Yay, more money!

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.      (Bloomberg)

In other words, as Ian Welsh puts it:  "Fed to Congress: We’ll Just Print 630 billion dollars K?  Thx Bye."

Real world effect? The inflation which was beginning to die down will get boosted back up. Gas prices were dropping. Not so much now. This completely blows the Fed's balance sheet out of the water, they are now past the 800 billion dollars they had (since that already spent over 500 billion). That puts it clearly into the "running the presses hot" stage. And as any conservative Chicago School economist can tell you, when you do that, inflation!

Helicopter Ben Bernanke has proved what he deserves his name. This is indeed the equivalent of dropping money from helicopters. Since the one thing everyone agrees is that this isn't a liquidity crisis, it won't solve the problem. But it may soothe the waters for a time. 630 billion is a LOT of money.  (FDL)

The Impolitic:

So we're going to bail out the world with fake money while Congress dickers over how to give this administration another 700 billion? I'm told this will lead to staggering inflation.

Logan Murphy says:

I’m not an expert on the economy or Wall St., but this sure looks like an end-around by the Bush administration to give away hundreds of billions of dollars without the approval of Congress.

Memeorandum.

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Comments

[MrMeaner]

Hi Damozel!
You may remember me.
We had an exchange, where I cited CNN interview which contained the famous "I invented the internet" comment by Gore.
remember?
Anyway, I just thought I'd chime in this time and tell you that on this, we have the same goal.
Whether you choose to put the blame where it really belongs, or not.
(and obviously, you don't)
My desire is that you use all of your influence to make sure this bail-out never happens.
Of course it will have consequences of which you are totally unaware, but on the other side of this alleged crisis, there will be massive economic growth.
Not only that, you will also see the socialist's goal of redistribution of the wealth come to fruition in a very different way than they ever intended.
What you will have is a large number of average, every-day Americans, who toiled their way into modest financial independence...people who don't live or die by their ability to make the next payment on their over-extended credit...with an opportunity to aquire assets at cut-rate prices.
There are many people, like me..who have chosen to invest in plans of their own creation, rather than in some firm managed by some twerp you never even meet.
This is an opportunity for those who have chosen wisely.
But, don't fool yourself. This was brought about as a result of the Community Reinvestment Act. It's true that the GLB act didn't help.
But it's also true that the only legislation ever proposed to deal with Fannie and Freddie was brought up by republicans, and killed by democrats.
It's a fact. And I'll prove it, if you insist.
But, I hope we can make this a friendly encounter.
After all, we do have the same goal in this instance, even if it's for different reasons.

Plus,
You look pretty hot in your photo, there.

I'm pretty studly, myself.

Here's a profile shot

#8^D
That's my real hair, BTW

heh heh