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Fed mulling issuing own debt: report
Reuters ^ | Dec 10, 2008 | Pratish Narayanan

Posted on 12/09/2008 11:04:59 PM PST by Vince Ferrer

The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Fed officials have approached Congress about the concept, which could include issuing bills or some other form of debt, it said.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bankinglist; eonomy; financelist; moneylist
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This is either a great idea, or a sign of the apocolypse. Since the fed is a private company, let it issue its own debt, and if it goes bankrupt, don't bail it out. Then hey, problem solved.

On the other hand, even doing this could crash the dollar, because maybe the federal reserve notes we use as dollars would now be back by the full faith and credit of those bonds.

1 posted on 12/09/2008 11:04:59 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer

and if it goes bankrupt, don’t bail it out.

but you know it will. Just like everyone else these days


2 posted on 12/09/2008 11:06:22 PM PST by ari-freedom (Conservatives solve problems. Libertarians ignore problems. Liberals create problems.)
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To: Vince Ferrer
I'm afraid I have heard "for the first time" too many times lately.

I'm afraid some of these maroons are going to do serious damage to our economic engine, while they implement their term paper theories and college professor ideas.

3 posted on 12/09/2008 11:15:30 PM PST by lawnguy (The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil-Cicero)
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To: Vince Ferrer
If this is allowed to happen then we will have witnessed a financial coup right beneath our noses.

People need to understand one basic principle when it comes to our fiat fractional reserve system: "DEBT IS MONEY, MONEY IS DEBT".

The Fed ("bankers") would be able to create all of the money that they wanted, without pesky Congress getting in the way.

The Fed has only done this in an emergency one other time - in 1933!

However, those notes were redeemable for gold. The current Fed debt would be backed by US!

Get your pitchforks and torches ready folks!!!!

4 posted on 12/09/2008 11:17:58 PM PST by politicket (Barack Obama - "Chains we can believe in")
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To: Vince Ferrer

The death of the US Dollar.


5 posted on 12/09/2008 11:31:21 PM PST by DB
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To: Vince Ferrer

The Federal Reserve isn’t a private company that can go bankrupt. It’s an organization of banks authorized by Congress, and its earnings come from its holdings of Treasury bonds.Unless the Treasury ceases to pay interest on its debt the Fed isn’t going broke.


6 posted on 12/09/2008 11:49:11 PM PST by Pelham (Mexifornia. It's your future.)
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To: politicket
" The Fed ("bankers") would be able to create all of the money that they wanted, without pesky Congress getting in the way."

Are they not doing that already?

7 posted on 12/09/2008 11:52:46 PM PST by KoRn
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To: Pelham

What will this do to the value of the dollar?


8 posted on 12/09/2008 11:54:34 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer; PAR35; bamahead; AndyJackson; Thane_Banquo; nicksaunt; MadLibDisease; happygrl; ...

Ping!


9 posted on 12/10/2008 1:09:04 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster (kim jong-il, chia head, ppogri, In Grim Reaper we trust)
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To: Pelham

so it is like freddie/fannie?


10 posted on 12/10/2008 1:33:33 AM PST by ari-freedom (Conservatives solve problems. Libertarians ignore problems. Liberals create problems.)
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To: Vince Ferrer
See also another FR thread covering the News Daily report of this same story Fed mulls issuing own debt: report.
11 posted on 12/10/2008 2:57:19 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: politicket
So far as I have been able to tell, this might not be correct. Current Treasury debt is indeed backed by US -- taxes collected by the IRS from Americans provide the dividend income stream to Treasury holders.

However it might be that the very purpose of these new "Ben Bonds" (as Carter Bonds, where Ben Benanke is the current Fed chairman) would be to back newly printed Dollars that are no longer backed by US Treasuries and tax collections, but rather are backed, say, by the pile of financial debt paper crap recently added to the Federal Reserves balance sheet.

Perhaps doing this would allow cutting the Dollar lose from the credit rating of the United States government and its Treasury debt, letting the Dollar sink and perhaps opening the door for a new currency, while not blowing up the soverign debt of the United States (and not blowing up you and me, as might happen if China got too pissed at us if we defaulted on all those Treasuries they are holding.)

12 posted on 12/10/2008 3:03:57 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: DB
Bingo!
13 posted on 12/10/2008 3:04:42 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: ari-freedom
Rather like it, yes. Except now instead of this leading to our homes being foreclosed on, it leads to our dollars being foreclosed on.

Freddie and Fannie issued mortgages of dubious worth. These new Ben Bonds would be used to back newly printed dollars of dubious worth.

These new "Ben Bonds" would be used, as best as I can guess, to issue more dollars, aka "Ben Bucks", which were no longer backed by Treasuries, meaning that the Federal Open Market Committee would make no pretense of soaking up any excess (inflationary) "Ben Bucks" by selling Treasuries.

The Dollar bill would go the way of Mortgage Backed Securities, to worthless paper heaven, along with Confederate dollars, Zimbabwe dollars, and Weimar Deutschmarks.

But the credit rating of the United States government, and the worth of the U.S. Treasury debt it has issued, reclared in some new currency, could remain strong (hah hah).

So actually, this becomes the opposite of Fannie and Freddie paper, which ended up morphing into Treasuries and still being honored by the "full faith and credit" (and IRS tax collections) of US. China held too much Fannie and Freddie paper, so we could not stiff them. Holders of these Ben Bucks and Bonds would be the likely losers in this shell game.

14 posted on 12/10/2008 3:18:45 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: Vince Ferrer
See also a longer analysis from Jesse's Cafe American of this that I quoted on the other thread, at: Fed mulls issuing own debt: report -- Post #6.
15 posted on 12/10/2008 3:24:31 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: ThePythonicCow

Better exchange your Federal Reserve Notes for gold or silver now...


16 posted on 12/10/2008 3:28:50 AM PST by ovrtaxt (It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it. ~Henry Allen)
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To: Vince Ferrer
Wherever he is, this man is laughing his ass off:
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
17 posted on 12/10/2008 3:40:55 AM PST by mkjessup (God, guns & guts have kept America free, we still need all three. The 'Arsenal of Democracy' is 'US')
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To: ovrtaxt
Perhaps, perhaps not.

There are several places one could have ones money (or lack thereof):

In inflationary times, such as much of the last 30 years, debt was a relatively good place to be, as one could pay it off with cheaper dollars. And careers and businesses were valuable most of the time as well - as salaries increased easily paying off the small investment it took to get started.

We are likely at a major inflection point.

I recommend:

Hindsight being 20-20, the place to be these last few months was U.S. Treasuries. There has been some stunning gains in their value, even in the long bonds that I was so certain, a few months ago, would have been trashed by now with all the printing press money being issued.
18 posted on 12/10/2008 3:41:37 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: mkjessup
For the curious who don't recognize the face (or instinctively right click to view an images properties), that gentleman above is Mr. Charles Ponzi.
19 posted on 12/10/2008 3:44:17 AM PST by ThePythonicCow ( Mooo !!)
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To: Vince Ferrer; TigerLikesRooster

Fairly simple. With a crashing domestic and global economies, the NWO’s next 2 steps are to kill the dollar and then issue something like the Euro for the northern western hemisphere. This is needed in order to set up and force into existence the Association of North American United States (ANUS).


20 posted on 12/10/2008 5:23:19 AM PST by RSmithOpt (Liberalism: Highway to Hell)
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