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.

by Jason J. Campbell Are you a writer, passionate about this or any other topic? Join Blogcritics!

Latest blogosphere posts tagged “federal reserve”

• Dovish Fed Comments Send Futures Soaring

  
  The Big Picture — Authority: 152
  St. Louis Fed member Bullard said over the weekend that he favors extending the Fed’s program of purchasing mortgage-backed securities beyond the 1st Q next year. This adds many more months to the low rates for an ‘extended period of time.’ His comments have pummeled the US Greenback , and as the dollar fell, ...
  2 hours ago

• How to squeeze more out of your cash in a low-rate world

  
  Money & Company — Authority: 665
  Near-zero short-term interest rates are murder on risk-averse savers who have cash in banks and money market mutual funds. Now imagine that the Federal Reserve might keep rates at these levels not just through 2010 but beyond because of the anemic economy. Given that possibility, my weekend column in The Times looks ...
  2 hours ago

• Dollar Falls Vs Euro, Yen On Bullards Comments

  
  Stupidica — Authority: 172
  SINGAPORE (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen in Asia Monday, after a top U.S. Federal Reserve official said he would prefer to keep the central banks asset-buying program active beyond its current cut-off date. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ...
  3 hours ago

• Mod Policy Update

  
  Mortgage-Blog — Authority: 450
  In Announcement 09-31, Fannie Mae reviewed updates to the Home Affordable Mortgage Program . Among the updates were new standard HAMP documents that must be implemented by March 1, 2010. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, ...
  3 hours ago

• Most concise explanation I’ve seen …

  
  Blog on the Run: Reloaded — Authority: 437
  … of why Tim Geithner ought not be on my payroll . Posted in I want my money back. Tagged: AIG, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Tim Geithner
  3 hours ago

• End the Fed: Sundays Festivities Plus a Monday Sneak Attack in Richmond

  
  Jr Deputy Accountant — Authority: 139
  Chicago Cleveland Cincinnati Miami Clearwater (huh?!) Kansas City Atlanta (dont worry, we got rained out in SF too) Detroit Houston (Ron Paul was out for that one) Im sure Im missing a bunch (most of the groups may be found here ). Birmingham fucking Alabama even - and I hope those poor ...
  5 hours ago

• St Louis Fedhead Bullard: We Should Just Keep Buying Up Stuff.

  
  Jr Deputy Accountant — Authority: 139
  im going to ignore the Geithner ears. too easy. James Bullard has seriously gone out of his mind. Hes gone, no use trying to reign him back in, hes drifting out there somewhere between monetary madness and lucid dreaming, pushing down the gas and trying to get us the hell out of here. Bloomberg : Federal ...
  6 hours ago

• Anybody notice the US Federal Gov. is bankrupt?

  
  InvestmentWatch — Authority: 451
  ‘November 23, 2009 Payback Time Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON ­ The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true. But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest ...
  7 hours ago

• Empire of Lies.

  
  FreedomRide.us — Authority: 100
  Here is the speech I gave at the third End the Fed protest in Boston, on November 22nd, 2009. Empire of Lies. In 1946, a British author named Eric Blair wrote an essay about how words shape ideas, and vice versa. Of particular interest to this former newspaper journalist was how politicians often used words not to ...
  8 hours ago

• Dead Battery of the Decade Award: Alan Greenspan

  
  Wall St. Cheat Sheet — Authority: 649
  We have worked hard this year to award great journalism and excellent work . Now we’d like to present our first Dead Battery Award to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: Readers who liked this also enjoyed these posts: First Amendment Award for Outstanding Journalism: Best Book Bailout Nation ...
  8 hours ago

• “Give me [financial] Liberty” Kevin Kobe’s speech from End The Debt – Audit The Fed Rally 11/22/2009

  
  The Liberty Restoration Project — Authority: 117
  We stand here 46 years after the assassination of John Kennedy. You don’t have to like the man, or the title of President. We’re here to honor an action. It’s an idea that no matter who you are, the pedigree you came from….the views you’ve had in the past, Liberal, Conservative, Anarchist or ...
  9 hours ago

• Government Responds to Economic Woes by Making More Bad Mortgage Loans

  
  The Beacon — Authority: 617
  Since the summer of 2008, the U.S. Treasury and the Fed have initiated a welter of new spending, lending, and subsidizing programs ostensibly aimed at steming the recession that began early in that year and deepened quickly in its last quarter and in the first quarter of 2009. Among the most notable of these programs ...
  9 hours ago

• Shadow banking - the dark side of too big too fail

  
  shopyield.com — Authority: 429
  View more documents from catelong .
  10 hours ago

• ‘Process of Reflation’

  
  shopyield.com — Authority: 429
  From Bloomberg. .. ~~~”…  Bill Gross , who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., said that the “ systemic risk ” of new asset bubbles is rising with the Fed keeping rates at record lows. “The Fed is trying to reflate the U.S. ...
  10 hours ago

• Payback Time: Federal Government Faces Balloon in Debt Payments

  
  NYT > Theater — Authority: 916
  The laughably low interest rates the United States has been paying on its colossal debt won’t last forever. The government faces a payment shock down the road.
  10 hours ago

• Ron Paul On Al Jazeera

  
  Truth In Our Time — Authority: 140
  
  10 hours ago

• Bernankes nomination hearing set for early December

  
  AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth — Authority: 157
  Although he shouldnt go through , he probably will. We will hear plenty of big talk but then very little action. The status quo will win, again. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernankes nomination to a second term will be the subject of a Senate Banking Committee hearing next month, the panels chairman said Friday. ...
  11 hours ago

• End the Fed: a National Day of Protest 11/22/09

  
  Jr Deputy Accountant — Authority: 139
  I will come back with the SF and nationwide ETF wrap-up before too long but for now, who stickered the SF Fed with "End the Fed"? STOP ZIMBABWE BENS REIGN OF TERROR!!! (great fucking protest, kids. We should do that again some time) Preliminary intelligence says that Houston had a great turnout, Richmond was a dud ...
  15 hours ago

• Help Us Help Alan Grayson Save Federal Reserve Audit Bill

  
  Firedoglake — Authority: 767
  This shocked everyone . In an unprecedented move, the House Financial Services Committee voted to approve an amendment by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to audit the Federal Reserve — the first time anything like this has happened in the Fed’s history. A push is already under way to remove the amendment on the House ...
  16 hours ago

• Congress and the Fed - addict and enabler

  
  The Mess That Greenspan Made — Authority: 596
  Jim Summers, an organizer for End the Fed , files this report in the Nashua Telegraph about, among other things, the symbiotic relationship between Congress and the Federal Reserve. The effects of our financial house-of-cards collapsing are everywhere: home foreclosures, unemployment, stock values cut in half, ...
  18 hours ago

Comments about federal reserve