The Monetary Base And Bank Lending

Life: Where do we come from? How did we get here? These are questions each one of us eventually asks ourselves and, in so doing, searches for the answers. It is intrinsically woven into us to know the basis of what sustains us. Why is it then, that the general public is satisfied in knowing only about current celebrity gossip and is content to remain ignorant when it comes to where our currency originates and how it is produced? Some may find it too confusing and overwhelming a subject about which to think. Is it possible that its perplexity is not by mistake? James Corbett mentions in his documentary, Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve, “Our monetary ignorance is artificial, a smokescreen that has been erected on purpose and perpetuated with the help of complicated systems and insufferable economic jargon.” (Corbett, J., 2014, July 6.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJeemTQ7Vk)

The credit system of the country had ceased to operate, and thousands of firms went into bankruptcy (Born...,.12). Something had to be done that would provide for a flexible amount of currency as well as provide cohesion between banks across the United States. (Hepburn, 399) This knight in shining armor, as described in the story of the bank run, was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 helped to establish banks as a united force working for the people instead of independent agencies working against each other. By providing a flexible amount of currency, banks did not have to hoard their money in fear of a bank run. Because of this, there was no competitive edge to see who could keep the most currency on hand and a more expansionary economy was possible.

Our economy is a machine that is ran by humans. A machine can only be as good as the person who makes it. This makes our economy susceptible to human error. A couple years ago the United States faced one of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, which was the Great Recession. The Great Recession was a severe economic downturn that occurred in 2008 following the burst of the housing market. The government tried passing bills to see if anything would help it from becoming another Great Depression. Trying to aid the government was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve went through a couple strategies in order to help the economy recover. The Federal Reserve provided three major strategies to start moving the economy in a better direction. The first strategy was primarily focused on the central bank’s role of the lender of last resort. The second strategy was meant to provide provision of liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets. The last strategy was for the Federal Reserve to expand its open market operations to support the credit markets still working, as well as trying to push long term interest rates down. Since time has passed on since the Great Recession it has been a long road. In this essay we will take a time to reflect on these strategies to see how they helped.

The Federal Reserve plays a vital role as the intermediary in clearing and settling interbank payments to assure that the millions of transactions performed each day are processed safely and efficiently. Acting as the “Banker’s Bank”, the Federal Reserve Banks provide various services to the nation’s banks such as check processing, electronic transfers, and ensuring there is enough cash in circulation to meet public demand. As fiscal agent for the U.S. government, the Reserve Banks pay Treasury checks and issue, transfer, and redeem U.S. government

Our nation faces many problems, and has for many years. Today’s generations, and especially the mainstream media, seem most concerned with social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage. While these issues are important, our economic situation should receive more urgent attention. Americans are desperate for better days, but lack a meaningful understanding of how our financial system works. Almost 100 years ago, the creation of the Federal Reserve Banking System was instated. One could argue that this system is the base of why we are 18 trillion dollars in debt, and rising. The Federal Reserve Banking System has contributed

When it comes to the supply of money, different actions are taken to assure stability in our country. To ensure we are keeping consistent with the loss in value of currency throughout the years, the Federal Reserve changes either the inflation or the interest rates so that prices will be able to balance the debt amount. With actions like such, there are purposes sought by the Federal Reserve Act set toward “the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee…: to promote… the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates” (Federal Reserve). These are a matter of acts under the monetary policy. However, today in America, we are still suffering from the continuous increase in our national debt, a problem that has been growing since the start of the new century.

After the Revolutionary War, many of the country’s citizens were in great debit and there was widespread economic disruption. The country was in need of an economic overhaul and the new country’s leaders would need to decide how to do this to ensure the new country did not fall apart. After two unsuccessful attempts at a national banking system, the Federal Reserve System was created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Since its inception, the Federal Reserve System has evolved into a central banking system that grows with the country. The Federal Reserve System provides this country with a central bank that is able to pursue consistent monetary policies. My goal in this paper is to help the reader to understand why the Federal

Prior to the institution of the Federal Reserve Act, the U.S. financial system’s basic structure was determined by the National Banking Acts of 1863, 1864, and 1865 (Broz, 1999). The purpose of the legislation was to provide a uniform national currency and to raise revenue for the federal government during wartime (Broz, 1999). While effective in its main purposes, it was flawed in the fact that the increase of available currency had little to no effect on consumer demand which led to large seasonal swings in interest rates and banking panics (Friedman & Schwartz, 168-169). In an attempt to rectify the shortcomings of the National Banking System, government turned to the New York Clearinghouse Association, purportedly known as the first central bank. Originally responsible for the settlement of payments between financial institutions, it was chosen because it was the only source at the time that had the ability to provide funds during high demand periods through a discount window or an open market operation (Broz, 1999). In the end, it failed to maintain an adequate amount of liquid reserves to counteract the monetary crisis‘s that ensued during the agricultural harvest cycles, when currency demands accelerated.

United States Federal Reserve system, also known as Federal Reserve or simply “Fed” is the United States central banking system. The Federal Reserve took inception in 1913, after the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act. The United States Congress has mandated three macroeconomic objectives to the Federal Reserve. These are minimum levels of unemployment, prices stability and keeping in check the rates of interests. Over the years, the role of Federal Reserve has expanded. It now formulates the country’s monetary policies, conducts supervision and regulation of the banking institutions, maintenance of the financial

Over the past few years we have realized the impact that the Federal Government has on our economy, yet we never knew enough about the subject to understand why. While taking this Economics course it has brought so many things to our attention, especially since we see inflation, gas prices, unemployment and interest rates on the rise. It has given us a better understanding of the effect of the Government on the economy, the stock market, the interest rates, etc. Since the Federal Government has such a control over our Economy, we decided to tackle the subject of the Federal Reserve System and try to get a better understanding of the history, the structure, and the monetary policy of the power that it holds.

The financial crisis that happened during 2007-09 was considered the worst financial crisis in the world since the great depression in the 1930s. It leads to a series of banking failures and also prolonged recession, which have affected millions of Americans and paralyzed the whole financial system. Although it was happened a long time ago, the side effects are still having implications for the economy now. This has become an enormously common topic among economists, hence it plays an extremely important role in the economy. There are many questions that were asked about the financial crisis, one of the most common question that dragged attention was ’’How did the government (Federal Reserve) contributed to the financial crisis?’’

The banking crisis of the late 2000s, often called the Great Recession, is labelled by many economists as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Its effect on the markets around the world can still be felt. Many countries suffered a drop in GDP, small or even negative growth, bankrupting businesses and rise in unemployment. The welfare cost that society had to paid lead to an obvious question: ‘Who’s to blame?’ The fingers are pointed to the United States of America, as it is obvious that this is where the crisis began, but who exactly is responsible? Many people believe that the banks are the only ones that are guilty, but this is just not true. The crisis was really a systematic failure, in which many problems in the

The recent recession lasting from 2007 until 2009, and the effects of which are still highly visible in the U.S. economy, led the Federal Reserve to use new and largely untested methods for protecting the country from a total financial collapse. The new strategy, which blurs the lines between monetary and fiscal policy, had been attempted only once before, and is open to criticism from several difference angles. This report documents the history, purpose, and controversy surrounding quantitative easing as a strategy to mitigate the effects of the recent recession. After considering these factors, the conclusion is drawn that quantitative easing was a modestly successful policy, yet one which should not be employed again. Although

According to Keister and McAndrews (2009), there is a very simple explanation for the huge amounts of money being held as excess reserves by banks. In their article, "Why Are Banks Holding So Many Excess Reserves?" Keister and McAndrews explore the nature of reserves in a normal economic situation comparing it with the crisis situation "following the collapse of Lehman Brothers" in 2008 (Keister and McAndrews, 2009). Though some would argue that the amount of excess reserves currently being held would indicate a failure on the part of the policies implemented by the Federal Reserve, Keister and McAndrews argue that it is merely a reflection of the scale of the policies implemented as well as a result of the Federal Reserve now paying interest on reserves (Keister and McAndrews, 2009). Further, Keister and McAndrews (2009), assert that by now paying interest on the reserves, the Central Bank can now control the target interest rate without manipulating reserves. Additionally, Keister and McAndrews (2009,) conclude that the, 'size of the reserves only reflects the size of the Federal Reserve's policy initiatives and indicate almost nothing about the effectiveness of these initiatives.'

This chapter is about the background of 2007-2008 financial crisis. The 2007-2008 financial crisis has a huge impact on US banking system and how the banks operate and how they are regulated after the financial turmoil. This financial crisis started with difficulty of rolling over asset backed commercial papers in the summer of 2007 due to uncertainty on the liquidity of mortgage backed securities and questions about the soundness of banks and non-bank financial institutes when interest rate continued to go up at a faster pace since 2004. In March 2008 the second wave of liquidity loss occurred after US government decided to bailout Bear Stearns and some commercial banks, then other financial institutions took it as a warning of financial difficulty of their peers. In the meantime banks started hoarding cash and reserve instead of lending out to fellow banks and corporations. The third wave of credit crunch which eventually brought down US financial system and spread over the globe was Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy in August 2008. Many major commercial banks in US held structured products and commercial papers of Lehman Brother, as a result, they suffered a great loss as Lehman Brother went into insolvency. This panic of bank insolvency caused loss of liquidity in both commercial paper market and inter-bank market. Still banks were reluctant to turn to US government or Federal Reserve as this kind of action might indicate delicacy of