Bernanke says Fed’s easy policy benefits world economy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday defended the central bank’s aggressive easing of monetary policy, saying while it was aimed at bolstering the economic recovery, it was helping other countries as well.
The Fed’s asset-purchase programs, aimed at keeping long-term borrowing costs down and spurring investment, have been criticized overseas for their adverse impact on emerging market currencies.
Bernanke on Sen. Warren and too big to fail banks: ‘I agree with her 100 percent’
I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke during his quarterly press conference this week if the central bank had its own estimate for the implicit subsidy that banks considered too big to fail receive in the form of cheaper borrowing. Senator Elizabeth Warren had confronted him at a recent hearing with a Bloomberg estimate of $83 billion which itself was derived from an IMF study. At the time, he dismissed her concern: “That’s one study Senator, you don’t know if that’s an accurate number.”
At the press briefing, Bernanke said the Fed does not have its own figures for Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail subsidy, in part because there were too many factors that made it difficult to calculate.
Fed’s Raskin bemoans low-wage nature of jobs recovery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Too much of the recent growth in employment has been concentrated in low-wage and temporary jobs, leaving the recovery on shaky ground, a top Federal Reserve official said on Friday.
Sarah Raskin, a member of the Fed’s board of governors, said monetary policymakers are doing all they can to promote stronger economic growth and beef up hiring, and cited improving labor market conditions. But she added interest rates are a blunt tool that cannot help direct the types of jobs that are created, noting one quarter of workers are now considered low-wage.
For whom the bell will not toll: Fed ditches old-school tech in policy release
It’s had a good run, and will remain in use for the purposes of alerting reporters that “Treasury is in the (press) room.” But when it comes to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions, which are also released out of Treasury, the central bank is ditching the old ringer.
Until the last FOMC decision, reporters would be guided by a 10 second countdown followed by a loud clinging of the bell pictured above. Now, news agencies will report the news at the set time of 2 pm – so there’s no wiggle room in the hyper competitive world of microsecond timings that give robot-traders an edge.
Fed to stick to stimulus as Cyprus rekindles global risks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve looks set to sustain its $85 billion monthly bond-buying stimulus despite improving U.S. economic data as a new flare-up in the euro zone crisis reminds officials of a risky global environment.
As it wraps up a two-day meeting on Wednesday, the U.S. central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee will continue debating the potential costs of quantitative easing, including the possibility its easy money policies will inflate asset market bubbles.
Missing definition in 1982 Fed glossary: quantitative easing
It’s not difficult to see why quantitative easing was not high on the Federal Reserve’s list of priorities in 1982. The term was nowhere to be found in the handy booklet pictured above, which I found while perusing the shelves of Reuters’ two-desk bureau inside the U.S. Treasury. Paul Volcker’s Fed was still battling runaway inflation, so policy options designed for a zero interest rate environment were nowhere near the horizon.
More interesting, perhaps, is what the pamphlet’s brief introduction says about a technology that is now so commonplace it is overlooked — and about the social milieu of central bankers.
Fed’s Fisher: Too-big-to-fail banks are “crony” capitalists
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (Reuters) – The largest U.S. banks are “practitioners of crony capitalism,” need to be broken up to ensure they are no longer considered too big to fail, and continue to threaten financial stability, a top Federal Reserve official said on Saturday.
Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, has been a critic of Wall Street’s disproportionate influence since the financial crisis. But he was now taking his message to an unusual audience for a central banker: a high-profile Republican political action committee.
Fed to hold course on stimulus despite debate over risks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve officials will spend much of a meeting next week debating the potential risks from the central bank’s stimulus plan, but Chairman Ben Bernanke has already signaled he believes the costs of inaction are even greater.
The U.S. central bank looks set to keep buying $85 billion a month in mortgage and Treasury bonds in an effort to encourage investment and bolster a weak economic recovery.
Argentines rush to churches, weep as countryman elected pope
BUENOS AIRES, March 13 (Reuters) – Jubilant Argentines
poured into churches on Wednesday to celebrate the surprise
announcement that one of their own – Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio – was the first Latin American pope, and many hoped
he’d bring change to a Church in crisis.
People throughout the mainly Roman Catholic country rushed
to churches, some crying and praying that the 76-year-old Jesuit
can bolster faith in the Vatican after a series of scandals.
Priceless: The unfathomable cost of too big to fail
Just how big is the benefit that too-big-to-fail banks receive from their implicit taxpayer backing? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke debated just that question with Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren during a recent hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. Warren cited a Bloomberg study based on estimates from the International Monetary Fund that found the subsidy, in the form of lower borrowing costs, amounts to some $83 billion a year.
Bernanke, who has argued Dodd-Frank financial reforms have made it easier for regulators to shut down troubled institutions, questioned the study’s validity.
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