Front-Running the Fed

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/01/front-running-the-fed

From a commentary by David Malpass at Economic Polices for the 21st Century:

The Fed already has a huge self-interested constituency, Wall Street, primed to support broader Fed bond purchases. The Fed's August preannouncement of Treasury bond purchases gave the bond market a juicy buy-the-rumor, sell-the-news opportunity to buy ahead of the Fed and then use the Fed's purchases as an exit strategy, taking a huge market profit off the Fed. This strategy also worked on the Fed's December 2008 MBS purchase announcement, giving Wall Street a huge profit buying MBS in advance of the Fed. The cost to the economy and savers of these concentrated profits is spread across the entire system, and will grow as the Fed expands. There'll be another round of concentrated profits whenever the Fed buys a new asset class or ultimately tries to divest itself.

He also reports, "The Federal Reserve System (including the regional banks) already has 22,000 employees."

by Editor  |  Jan 6, 2011 at 10:54 am Related Topics:  Banking, Federal Reserve receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list