Friday, June 05, 2009

Fed's Exit Strategy

Perhaps I am too much of an optimist-- I can envision the looming hyperinflation beyond this economic slowdown. I have no idea how far that may be.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it appears that the Fed are working on an exit strategy. This is positive news, but no one expects this strategy to work 100%. Economist's article points out what they are planning to do and why that may not work, pending a change in rules.
The usual approach is to conduct reverse-repurchase agreements, borrowing from one of its 16 primary dealers for short periods of time in order to finance the assets on its balance-sheet. But dealers may not have the necessary capacity for the task.

The Fed is currently absorbing reserves by having the Treasury issue more debt than it needs. When dealers purchase the debt, cash shifts from their reserves accounts to Treasury deposits at the Fed, where they remain, unspent. But the Treasury itself is constrained by the debt ceiling set by Congress, and an independent central bank should not rely on the fiscal authority for one of its tools.

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