Fed piecing together emergency rescue plan

Straits Times ^ | Updated April 8, 6.00 am (Singapore time)

[DeaconBenjamin]

WASHINGTON -- Confronting new fears of recession, the Federal Reserve is refining an emergency economic rescue plan that includes further interest rate cuts and billions of dollars in extra cash for the banking system.

The Fed's effort would be aimed at pulling the country out of a nosedive that has seen 465,000 jobs evaporate in just the past two months, raising fears among economists that the weak recovery from the 2001 recession is in danger of stalling out altogether.

'Clearly, the Fed is in uncharted territory,' said economist David Jones. 'I think they will try some experimental moves.'

One key element hasn't been used successfully in a half-century.

Based on comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other Fed officials, the central bank is expected to move beyond its traditional buying and selling of short-term Treasury securities held by banks to the direct purchase of longer-term securities in an effort to influence long-term interest rates.

Also, Fed officials have indicated they are prepared in the event of an unexpected shock to the system to lend massive amounts of money directly to commercial banks to make sure that financial markets do not freeze up.

And as a third policy option, Fed officials have indicated they would explicitly state that if the federal funds rate is moved below its current 41-year low of 1.25 per cent, it is likely to stay at the lower level as long as needed to get the economy on its feet -- which would help investors' worries about a sudden jump in interest rates down the road.

The fact that Fed officials have been so open in discussing these options underscores the need the central bank sees to restore investor confidence that has been shaken by the fact that the Fed's aggressive two-year campaign to cut short-term rates has yet to produce a sustainable economic recovery.

The Fed's target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge for overnight loans, is now at a 41-year low of 1.25 per cent. -- AP

[AdamSelene235]

These matters have been extensively studied and the abstrusiveness and highly mathematical nature of the models place such knowledge outside the bounds of most people as nuclear physics.

The rudiments of both subject are not difficult to understand.

Translation of the above: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. You are being used for your *own* good. Folks who find themselves being raped economically should learn to JUSTSHUTUPANDTAKEIT.

[AdamSelene235]

I am sure you would rather rely on JKG (an arch-Keynesian) for monetary theory than Milton Friedman. Who could be further from your perspective than JKG?

That's why I chose him, Einstein.

Its called irony.

[AdamSelene235]

These matters have been extensively studied and the abstrusiveness and highly mathematical nature of the models place such knowledge outside the bounds of most people as nuclear physics.

And what is it with psdueo-scientists and their physics envy?

Nuclear physics is rigorous and can predict events.

Monetary charlatans can not. They are no more scientists than the physiognomists of Nazi Germany.

Oh, and the math they use is a friggin cake walk.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Baloney. Anyway mathematics in economics is just another tool. I guess you would complain that the diagrammers so prevalent in economics are not Rembrandts and ask why they are so enamoured of drawing.

Obviously you have not studied the more highly mathematical economic models. Or any probably since you can't even figure out what would occur from buying back government debt. No school of economics teaches what you professed to believe would happen.

Physics only deals with material events thus has to be more predictive than a science which deals with material and pyschological matters. Who can predict how large masses of people will react to things?

I do not follow the more mathematic economists (Kenneth Arrow, Tienbergen, John Nash etc.) but do not pretend that their work is not significant. That is generally the approach of the anti-intellectual know-nothings.

Economists are charlatans, constitutional lawyers are charlatans, politicians are charlatans, historians are charlatans. Oh, yeah but discredited whackjobs on the fringes? These we should take all their pronouncements as if holy script.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Most of the crap about the debt is nonsense. How can you evaluate the value of most of the government holdings? How much is the Grand Canyon worth?

Deficits are totally misconscrued since the value of the things purchased is never considered. Spending 10 billion on social security payments looks the same as spending 10 billion on a 1000 buildings.

Social security was never properly funded because the politicos keep adding beneficiaries without changing the funding mechanism.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Irony needs a set up.

One nonsensical or false statement after the other is not a proper set up.

First, you have to say something true or sensible before irony will work.

[AdamSelene235]

Or any probably since you can't even figure out what would occur from buying back government debt. No school of economics teaches what you professed to believe would happen.

I wasn't talking about the FOMC.

Anyway mathematics in economics is just another tool.

Yes, and there are several ways it can be used. Contrast its use by scientists with that of psychologists. Scientists use it for its predicitive value. Psychologists use it to provide an aura of "Scientism" to their work.

Popular/politicized atmospheric science is a good analogy to much of economic scientism. A highly nonlinear coupled multivariable system(with many key variables excluded/unknown) is "modeled" to give the appearance of knowledge.

Economists are charlatans, constitutional lawyers are charlatans, politicians are charlatans, historians are charlatans.

No these are all legitimate fields but they are not science nor should pretend to be.

[justshutupandtakeit]

You were talking about exactly the same thing that the FOMC does when it wants to expand the money supply. Buy debt. If you believe, as you have indicated, that the Fed can buy back the federal debt without expanding the money supply your economic world is unlike any I have encountered.

Biologists use mathematics the same way that social scientists do. I suppose in your world Biology isn't a science either or medicine. Statistical analysis is not inappropriate for fields outside the physical sciences. Any study which uses the scientific method is obviously a science. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the definition of "science" since you are apparently misinformed as to its TRUE meaning.

[AdamSelene235]

If you believe, as you have indicated, that the Fed can buy back the federal debt without expanding the money supply your economic world is unlike any I have encountered.

I was talking about the Treasury.

Biologists use mathematics the same way that social scientists do. I suppose in your world Biology isn't a science either or medicine.

No they are not. They are a mixture of techne and potential science. Biology is more of a science than medicine.

Anybody who has done serious experimental physics knows that physics is far from the scientific ideal. Roughly half of the literature contains at least one or two flaws ranging from cosmetic to serious.

Statistical analysis is not inappropriate for fields outside the physical sciences.

Yes it can be useful. But is more popularly used for the aura of scientism.

Any study which uses the scientific method is obviously a science.

Utterly false. You can apply scientific methods to psychology, music, or physiognomy and you will have scientism, not science.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the definition of "science" since you are apparently misinformed as to its TRUE meaning.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with science as it is practiced.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Treasury? Where would Treasury get the money to buy back debt except from taxes (which would be a wash not deflationary) or selling other debt which would also not be deflationary?

No one ever claimed all science was ideal. However, use of the scientific method ( the core of modern science) is not limited to physical sciences as you erroneously imply.

That is not the case with Economics even if so with sociology or psychology. Economics is inseparable from numbers and numbers lead at some point to mathematics.

Science- knowledge. From Scientia the prp. stem of scire know. Scientists were those having knowledge or skill and the Latin came from the Greek word meaning producing knowledge. -the Oxford dictionary of English Etymology. Another dictionary says science is Any methodological activity, discipline or study. and Knowledge gained through experience. Scientism is a theory.

It is true that the word has come to mean study of natural phenomena which would be the material world but that is an undue restriction of a perfectly good word.

I know well it is practiced by frauds and montebanks as well as true seekers of knowledge.

[plusone]

Some good points. Keep this in mind. The stock market is a zero sum game. What ever is lost by some investors must be made by others. During the crash of 1929, suppossedly millions of dollars were 'lost'. Not true. What really happened is that millions of dollars changed hands. Since so many tens of thousands of small invstors lost everything, that suggests that only a handful of people actually made money. That handful made a fortune, since they were on the winning side of the bet. That doesn't prove there was an organized cabal of people trying to crash things and get rich, but it does raise the suspicion.

[justshutupandtakeit]

As far as the zero sum game comment- new money coming into it makes it not a zero sum game and new stocks. Let's say that a $1000 new stock is issued and sold, if the market was worth 100,000 before it is worth 101,000 after issue. Valuation of stocks can fall and rise. If I buy a stock from you today for ten dollars and sell it to Adam for 20 dollars and he sells it to Joe for 30. There has been 20 dollars in income.

Short sellers in the depression did not make the money that the losers lost, those losses far exceeded the gains to short sellers. Part of the economic collapse came because of the capital lost in the market collapse. If one group merely made the money the other lost there would not have been an economic collapse.

A stock is worth what the market decides it is worth, falls in that worth are not offset by gains though all gains might be offset by losses. I don't have time to think about that side of it.

Shrewd economic analysis and financial evaluations generally pays off. It did in the '29 crash. As it was obvious in the 90s with regard to the dot.com crashes. The principle problem is sufficient capital to wait out the inevitable crash. Same thing happened in the markets for railroads, electric companies, radio companies throughout our economic history.

No conspiracies but examples of capitalism's "creative destruction" as Schumpeter called it. It can be viewed as the corrective adjustment that brings the economic system into accord with the financial system. Since much of the financial system's valuation is psychological it gets out of proper equilibrium with the "real" economic system this is one of the principle causes of financial crashs.

Today it is easier to avoid an economic crash due to the fiscal and monetary tools at the government's disposal. Thus, a short-term financial collapse such as occured in 1987 does not necessarily translate itself into an economic collapse as it did in the 1930s following the 29 financial collapse.