Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve (known informally as "The Fed") was created in 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, which effectively centralized America’s banking system. The Board of Governors is the presidentially appointed governing body.

The Federal Reserve has four basic functions, though it provides a variety of services to the United States Government. First, it influences market conditions by regulating national interest rates. Second, it supervises banking institutions and safeguards consumer credit rights. Third, it attempts to stabilize financial markets that would otherwise undermine the economic stability of the United States. Finally, it offers a variety of financial services to U.S. and internationally recognized foreign institutions.

The Federal Reserve also controls the discount rate (a basic interbank lending rate), and has the power to bail out major corporations, pending congressional approval - a power that is, however, highly contested in the political discourse.

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Latest blogosphere posts tagged “Federal Reserve”

• HR1207 Passes committee against Barney Frank’s wishes

  
  blog of bile — Authority: 121
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials ...
  2 hours ago

• What is the US doing with Irans "frozen" assets?

  
  Corrente — Authority: 618
  Press TV : Thirty years after the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, the United States still holds Irans frozen assets and properties without paying Tehran anything in assets-related financial gains, a report says. On November 4, 1979, university students took over the building of the US embassy and held 52 ...
  5 hours ago

• Cut this nonsense. “Investors” are GONE along with any meaningful volume in the stock markets.

  
  InvestmentWatch — Authority: 452
  What we have now is the currency traders determining the Equity market movements every day trying to make a quick buck before it topples again. These gains are a SHAM and are designed to make the public feel like the economy is recovering when it is not. So you can listen to MW and say “Oh…investors are planning ...
  5 hours ago

• More Central Bank Independence: The Fed in a Corner?

  
  J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — Authority: 718
  Tim Duy thinks that the Federal Reserve has backed itself into a corner. He is right that the Fed because it was independent was in a "better position to raise regulatory and supervisory roadblocks during the debt build-up compared to other, more politically susceptible agencies." But at the time the Federal Reserve ...
  7 hours ago

• What Should We Be Doing to the Federal Reserve?

  
  J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — Authority: 718
  Free Exchange muses on central bank independence. I havent done a nose count on the FOMC. But it is pretty clear that right now it has too many inflation hawks on it and not enough unemployment hawks. The only saving grace is that other central banks are worse--some much worse. In the 1970s the American Congress ...
  7 hours ago

• Audit the Fed on End the Fed Weekend? Bah

  
  Jr Deputy Accountant — Authority: 138
  Everything is wonderful, shhhh It is only appropriate that End the Fed weekend be filled with talk of Audit the Fed, Im glad to see everyone keeping up with this one. Why? Because I want to bitch about it, probably, but we can get to that later. Its been a busy weekend for Audit the Fed, and perhaps attempting ...
  8 hours ago

• END THE FED – HR 3996, the Automatic Bailout Bill of 2009

  
  Liberty Maven Liberty Maven: For Liberty, One Individual At A Time — Authority: 576
  My comments as those masters of disaster, the U.S. Congress, create a horrible bill, the Financial Stability Improvement Act of 2009, and on the fate of Ron Paul’s Audit the FED bill, HR 1207. Originally published November 20, 2009 at ...
  12 hours ago

• Brad DeLong’s five percent solution…

  
  Re: The People — Authority: 131
  Brad DeLong thinks there is about a five percent chance we will see a second Great Depression and there is little or nothing which can be done to avoid it:For 2 1/4 years now I have been saying that there is no chance of a repeat of the Great Depression or anything like it–that we [...]
  13 hours ago

• Why The "Output Gap" Inflation Model May Be Fatally Flawed

  
  zero hedge — Authority: 767
  Could it be that the fundamental economic indicator that is gospel not only to Goldman Sachs , but to Ben Bernanke in estimating and determining monetary policy , the output gap , provides a flawed reading of the economy? As a reminder, Ben Bernanke has repeatedly expressed little regard for either commodity ...
  13 hours ago

• Fair Game: Revisiting a Fed Waltz With A.I.G.

  
  NYT > Theater — Authority: 916
  A government report on the bailout of A.I.G. is must reading for taxpayers looking to know why the $182 billion “rescue” is the most troubling episode of the financial disaster.
  13 hours ago

• Who do you think Crap and Tax will benefit?

  
  InvestmentWatch — Authority: 452
  http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20090702_banksters_cap_trade.htm http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/will_dems_allow_goldman_to_man.html As for Usury thank the democrats http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/greider/3 Glass-Steagall without which this fraud could not have been perpetuated? ...
  14 hours ago

• Steve Berra Thinks Your Taxes Are Too High Dudes

  
  boil the ocean — Authority: 416
  Taking aim Internet entrepreneur Steve Berra is in the news again. This week in dramatic fashion he took to the web with a heartfelt diatribe centered on the plight of the American small businessman. In keeping with the militaristic theme of the Berrics he describes nothing less than “a war being waged upon ...
  14 hours ago

• Second Biggest Deception in History

  
  American Conservative Daily — Authority: 503
  11/21/2009 Second Biggest Deception in History David L Lamon The passage of the healthcare bill in the manner it is being done rivals only the way the Federal Reserve Act became law in a deceptive vote in1913 A Case for term limits either by decree or common sense voting There is not a one of us that don’t ...
  14 hours ago

• Guest Post: Fed-Convert Money Printing Alert

  
  Bear Market Investments — Authority: 498
  Zero Hedge Submitted by reader Don General This note contains an update on where Fed printing stands, how much is left, what the pace of purchases is, and when the program will stop. It also updates the Fed’s balance sheet, and its inflationary impact. This update houses some very important ...
  15 hours ago

• Guest Post: Fed-Covert Money Printing Alert

  
  zero hedge — Authority: 767
  Submitted by reader Don General This note contains an update on where Fed printing stands, how much is left, what the pace of purchases is, and when the program will stop. It also updates the Feds balance sheet, and its inflationary impact. This update houses some very important developments, due to actions at ...
  16 hours ago

• House Finance Committee actually did something!

  
  Rants From The Rookery — Authority: 137
  The Washington establishment suffers a serious defeat By Glenn Greenwald Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress: the House Finance Committee -- in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote -- defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway ...
  16 hours ago

• The Great Stimulus Debate of ‘09

  
  NOVAKEO.COM — Authority: 135
  “Crybabies need not apply” Barack Obama has decided to push the economy back into recession, and no one can figure out why. Perhaps the impressionable Obama has come under the spell of the deficit hawks and crystal gazers who see Armageddon around every corner. Or maybe he’s thrown-in with the snappish Marc ...
  17 hours ago

• "What the good Professor is suggesting is that the Treasury doesn’t have to issue bonds at all. In..."

  
  The Information Paradox — Authority: 491
  “What the good Professor is suggesting is that the Treasury doesn’t have to issue bonds at...
  17 hours ago

• Dallas Fed President Calls for the End of Too Big to Fail

  
  ThinkMarkets — Authority: 514
   by Jerry O’Driscoll   Thursday at the Cato Monetary Conference, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher called for the end of of the too-big-to-fail doctirine.   He identiifed the largest financial institutions as the source of excessive risk taking.  He also repeated his claim that these institutions ...
  18 hours ago

• Lining Up At Midnight At Wal-Mart To Buy Food Is Part Of The New Recovery

  
  One Man's Thoughts — Authority: 430
  There seems to be a growing divide in the current U.S. economy.  On the one hand, you have the financial sector swimming in their bailout-induced profits like a modern day Scrooge Mcduck.  In their circles, it appears as if the recession is over.  On the other hand, you have average Americans seeing access to ...
  19 hours ago

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