I had totally missed that Ms. Judy Shelton had been out swinging against the Fed, in the Wall Street Journal as usual.
Love-hate relationship to Shelton... she's sometimes interesting, often correct, but also remarkably bland and empty. This was pretty good. (Didn't like any of her books, for instance; gained nothing from them.)
The Fed once was committed to “normalizing” its balance sheet—shrinking its footprint in credit markets by reducing the size of its portfolio of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities.
yeah, it's been a while since anybody cared about that:
The Fed owns $4.2 trillion in U.S. government debt in the form of Treasury bills, notes and bonds. The CBO projects the Fed’s holdings of Treasurys will climb to $9.9 trillion in 2035—more than double today’s amount.
"The blowout of the Fed’s balance sheet has enlarged its powers and prominence."
The Fed’s complicity in fueling the inflation that was largely driven by excessive government spending in recent years appears to have rendered monetary officials leery of economic activity—to the point of leaning toward restrictive interest rates at the expense of productive economic growth.
Almost heresy to call for abolishing IOER, but OK let's go:
The Fed’s complicity in fueling the inflation that was largely driven by excessive government spending in recent years appears to have rendered monetary officials leery of economic activity—to the point of leaning toward restrictive interest rates at the expense of productive economic growth.
"No “profits” from Fed operations, no remittances to the Treasury."
The accounting conundrums of federal agencies are wearying to the soul. But to accept passively the inexorable enlargement of government would be fully demoralizing. We must confront the Fed’s effect on the federal budget because robbing Peter to pay Paul leads to further government encroachment. Taxpayers will ultimately pick up the tab.
ungated: https://archive.md/8GvKP