Bernanke, Europe's Central Banks Throw in Everything They've Got

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10082008.html

October 8, 2008

Bernanke, Europe's Central Banks Throw in Everything They've Got

To the Bunkers!
By MIKE WHITNEY

Stocks fell sharply across Europe and Asia last night following another down day on Wall Street where the Dow Jones lost 508 points and the S&P 500 slipped below the 1,000 mark for the first time since 2003. Japan's benchmark index, the Nikkei, lost nearly 10 percent while shares in London at one point slumped more than 7 per cent. Trading was suspended in Indonesia and Russia where stocks fell 10 percent each on opening.

According to Bloomberg News: "The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada and Sweden's Riksbank cut interest rates in an emergency coordinated bid to ease the economic effects of the financial crisis."

The move by the Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC) brings the Fed's Fund rate down to 1.5 per cent, 500 basis points below the current rate of inflation.

Following yesterday's 508 point bloodbath, President George Bush tried to calm terrified investors about the turmoil in the markets. He said, "I know that the days are dim right now for a lot of folks. But I firmly believe tomorrow is going to be brighter."

Just hang in there.

The present crisis, which has its roots in the unsupervised expansion of credit in the United States, has spread from subprime mortgages and toxic securities, to the entire global financial system, where it has savaged equities markets and is now threatening to do incalculable damage to the US and European banking systems.

Yesterday, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke announced plans to pump an estimated $1 trillion of short-term loans (commercial paper) to head off a growing liquidity squeeze. Unlike, Treasury Secretary Paulson's $700 billion bailout, which was opposed by over 200 economists, Bernanke's plan targets the source of the problem and could actually succeed. Commercial paper is a low-cost source of cash for companies to meet short-term financial needs. It's cheaper than tapping a line of credit at a bank. The Fed will start providing businesses and financial institutions with the short-term credit they need to maintain normal day-to-day operations. The Fed is invoking emergency powers under its "unusual and exigent circumstances" clause in order to avert an even larger shock to the financial system beyond the wreckage in the stock market and hundreds of bank closures that are expected into 2010. Providing unsecured loans directly to businesses is controversial, but necessary. If these corporations and financial institutions fail just because they cannot roll over their short term debt, the overall damage to the economic system could be devastating.

[Trillo]

1. "Time to Change the Statute?"

Excerpt below from page two of THE FED NOW OWNS THE WORLD'S LARGEST INSURANCE COMPANY -- BUT WHO OWNS THE FED?

According to the Fed’s website, the control Congress has over the Federal Reserve is limited to this:

“he Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute.”

As we know from watching the business news, “oversight” basically means that Congress gets to see the results when it’s over. The Fed periodically reports to Congress, but the Fed doesn’t ask; it tells. The only real leverage Congress has over the Fed is that it “can alter its responsibilities by statute.” It is time for Congress to exercise that leverage and make the Federal Reserve a truly federal agency, acting by and for the people through their elected representatives. If the Fed can demand AIG’s stock in return for an $85 billion loan to the mega-insurer, we can demand the Fed’s stock in return for the trillion-or-so dollars we’ll be advancing to bail out the private banking system from its follies.

If the Fed were actually a federal agency, the government could issue U.S. legal tender directly, avoiding an unnecessary interest-bearing debt to private middlemen who create the money out of thin air themselves. Among other benefits to the taxpayers. a truly “federal” Federal Reserve could lend the full faith and credit of the United States to state and local governments interest-free, cutting the cost of infrastructure in half, restoring the thriving local economies of earlier decades.