bill 1. independence of the fed boils down to setting fed funds rate, that is all. the first time it bounces a treasury check, greenspan & co. will be out. ------------------------------------------
Reply: Treasury never forces the issue. It always covers the checks it writes completely from taxes and security sales. The more likely outcome from a bounced check (which itself is quite unlikely because the issue will never be forced) would be that it would be the Secretary of Treasury who would be axed for incompetence, not the Federal Reserve Board chairman. As Commander-in-Chief, I suppose, the President in theory could march the army down the street on his own authority, and arrest Greenspan in his office. Whether or not he could make it stick is an open question. It would be constitutional crisis of the first order. The tinpots couldn't even make the arrest of Hugo Chavez stick in a country where such arrests are standard practice. They are not standard practice in the United States which makes a religion out of the rule of law. -- and when all is said and done, the ffr matters very little. ------------------------------------------ Reply: True. -- (also note that greenspan now has virtually no credibility in govt or in financial mkts--even the economist regularly ridicules him. better find another villain.) ------------------------------------------ Reply: Did you not see the recent Greenspan testimony to the Banking Committee on CSPAN? I believe the streaming video is still available at http://www.cspan.org . Committee members were effusive with praise. Only nut-cases Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul dissented, who are taken seriously by nobody--repeat--nobody. The informed dissenters like Patman are long gone. Perhaps you could broaden your reading a bit beyond the Economist. -- 2. watch ffr carefully and you will see that a few minutes after a fed announcement of rate change, it instantly jumps to the target--whether or not there has been any buying/selling of treasuries. randy ------------------------------------------ Reply: Regardless of what actually causes the change, they think--or claim--it is caused by the churning. "Whether or not" is not a consideration because inferred is the assumption it could be "not." The Fed is constantly and simultaneously purchasing and selling securities (mostly in the form of derivatives of federal securities like "repos" and "swaps") through the so-called "open market." To effect a change of $20 billion in system reserves they conduct $3,700 billion in transactions, in ratio of 185 to 1. Whatever is in fact the intent or the result, there is no doubt it does enrich certain privileged beneficiaries of Wall Street. --------- Original Message --------- DATE: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:43:10 From: "Wray, Randall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: >bill >1. independence of the fed boils down to setting fed funds rate, that is all. the >first time it bounces a treasury check, greenspan & co. will be out. and when all is >said and done, the ffr matters very little. (also note that greenspan now has >virtually no credibility in govt or in financial mkts--even the economist regularly >ridicules him. better find another villain.) >2. watch ffr carefully and you will see that a few minutes after a fed announcement >of rate change, it instantly jumps to the target--whether or not there has been any >buying/selling of treasuries. >randy > ____________________________________________________________ Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail! http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005 --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
