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The Empty Bank

The Federal Reserve announced the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF) on March 23. The intent of this program was to calm the corporate bond market (secondary) then experiencing a massive blowout. Credit spreads of all kinds of corporate securities were exploding, the market in danger of completely shutting down.According to its latest balance sheet […]

Dollar, Not Bank

There were no Lehman’s or anything like it during March 2020. Does that mean there hadn’t been a crisis? According to some, yes. If you were talking specifically about a bank crisis, then, of course, that would be true. There was no bank crisis last month. It would […]

Why Instability Is The New Normal

$321 Billion

That’s how much cash the Fed will pump into Primary Dealer accounts this week. Guess how much new Treasury issuance there will be over the same period. If you guessed $321 billion, you would be all but correct. It’s $328 billion.

That’s right. The Fed is buying all of the COVID19 rescue financing. It’s inventing imaginary money to pay Primary Dealers for that new supply. The Fed is printing the money to pay for the economic bailout.

And it’s not stabilizing the financial markets. Here’s why, and what it means