Live! From St. Louis, MO: Exclusive Interview with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard
Bloomberg News 14:56
Consumer Credit outstanding fell $14.8b in Sept seasonally adjusted, almost $5b more than expected and marks the 11th month in the past 12 of declines. At $2.456T outstanding, it is 4.9% below the record high in July '08. After a flat reading in Aug, (didn't fall b/c of the CARS program), non revolving debt outstanding fell by $4.9B. Revolving (mostly credit cards) balances outstanding fell by $9.9B. To fully put into perspective today's data, look at the current level of consumer credit (doesn't include mortgages, the biggest chunk of consumer credit) relative to GDP. As of Q3, it totaled 17.2%...
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July 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
The Federal Reserve is a private company owned by the banks. How can that result in independence?
The concept of the banks owning a company that is given the legal right to set interest rates, print money and regulate those very same banks — fifty years from now economists will ask, “How stupid could we have been?
Federal Reserve vice-chairman Donald Kohn says the role as both regulator and regulated “are not incompatible.” Yeah, I suppose, in the same way that it is not incompatible to have a system where I would have the exclusive right to issue speeding tickets to me.
And Bloomberg News actually publishes this as though it is a plausible position. America’s bullshit meter is broken.
July 11th, 2009 at 1:23 am
I want to know, why the buzz is AUDIT and the only thing these guys can say is, “The Fed’s independence is important!”
To me this has guilt and running scared all over it.
I wish the fund I work for could say the same thing, “Audit? WTF? NO! We are independent from all that to protect your best interests.”
Madoff at least had his brother-in-law produce a phony audit, maybe the Fed could hire the same company? I’ll bet Madoff’s brother-in-law needs the work since his biggest and only client is in jail for 150 years….