Dude is usually interesting (also, finish that goddamn book you've been plugging for year!)
Today, eh mediocre. While interesting and occasionally funny, there wasn't really a point to this article. The Fed making losses (yeees, that's what happens when you jack up rates and crash the value of the bonds you're holding, locked in as their low payouts are compared to the high rates you're paying on reserves). Nothing further re: Fed independence or operation of the bank or banking system. Just that they're making losses.
Also, you'll be shocked to learned that the Fed's operations are, um, "just banking"
The Federal Reserve is a special bank, but it’s still a bank. When it adds assets to its own balance sheet like treasuries or mortgage-backed securities, it matches those with liabilities — either brand-new physical dollar notes or brand-new deposits. We call deposits at the Fed reserves, but they’re just deposits. There is no magic to this, no special money creation. It’s just banking
Fu-nnyyyy, on reserve requirements that didn't earn internet:
bankers have felt about holding reserves the way children feel about taking a bath. They’re against it, but that’s not really the point, because it’s not their decision.
The Fed
issues dollars and can always issue more, therefore losses don’t matter. But this is an assumption, not a law of physics. What it misses is the political importance of seigniorage — the profit to the sovereign nation’s coffers for manufacturing money.
Nice piece, but also a little bit of a nothing-burger.
non-paywalled: https://archive.md/yPBbb