Monday, June 09, 2008

Federal Reserve Borrowings this year

Well ladies and gentlemen, some of you know me personally and most (thank your lucky stars) have never had to meet me face to face.

I'm afraid that for the last 30 some odd years I've run off most people I meet sooner or later.

That's the good thing about family.........they have to let you in when you come knocking. They generally let me know gently that there are several subject that are totally verboten if the do let me in however. If I forget I notice that after only a short while, their eyes start to roll back in their sockets and they begin to weave back and forth like a drunk after a 2 week binge..

I really don't mean any harm.......but I am old enough to remember how great this nation was and in large part still is......and I've read enough to learn how great it started out and why. That is why I can't help but notice that there are things I notice and comment on that apparently people don't want to hear.

One of these (one of many) is the continuing assault on what was at one time the best monetary systems in the world. I could go in to much of what I know about the system we have now under the Federal Reserve, but if you want to know you have only to click your keyboard a few times to get enough information to keep you busy for years and after only a couple of hours you'll throw up your hands and start pretending you never read any of it.

I've just got one little question for you.

Have you looked at the history of bank borrowings from the Federal Reserve over it's almost 100 year history lately?

If not you might scratch you head over this Graph I ran across.

Click Here

If you will notice most recessions (the shaded areas) take place when there is a little spike up in borrowing (not all, but most).

I wonder what this means for the near future?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Banks borrowing from the Fed isn't like when we borrow. It's usually only overnight borrowing and it has to do with capital on hand without denting the bank reserves. Banks are required to hold certain levels of reserves on hand. Say they make a loan out to a company and need a short term pop of money to cover that check that is loaned out. It's only for one night and the next day, the bank pays it back out of the money that comes in with regular banking shit like repayment of consumer loans (the shit WE take out) or fees or whatever.

So yes, that is a scary graph, but interest rates are also EXTREMELY low for Fed borrow and so banks are taking advantage of that. In the end though, the Fed won't "loan" to them unless they DO have reserves and meet other requirements.

Ummm, did I mention I took a Money and Banking course at UW when I was working on my degree?