However, the same Republicans in the House and Senate who resisted the passage of the last stimulus bill, despite double-digit unemployment, are agitating for Ben Bernanke to raise interest rates and to curtail the expansive open market operations policy. They also said that the bank bailouts "rewarded" failure, despite the risks of global insolvency posed by mass bank failures (Isidore 2009).
While the Fed certainly could have been more proactive in preventing the credit crisis and recession by demanding greater regulation of creative financial instruments like derivatives and not setting interest rates at historically low levels during the last recession after the dot.com bubble burst, the Fed's policy at present seems sound. Regarding the continued high rate of unemployment, the Fed cannot create jobs: that is a simulative tool that lies in the hands of the federal government, and was the justification for the size of the last stimulus bill.
Bernanke must be given credit for putting aside the Fed's traditional concerns and ignoring calls to pursue a tight-money policy as the economy shows signs of growth, but employment figures continue to falter. It is "part of the Fed's job description to worry about unemployment,"...
Open Market Operations Monetary policy may involve several facets, including reserve requirements, discount rate and interest rate targeting. The U.S. Federal Reserve's long-time strategy has been to use interest rate targeting through Open Market Operations primarily to keep the economy in its attempts to keep the economy in a state of equilibrium. Today, open market operations (purchase and sale of U.S. Treasury and other federal agency securities) are the principal tool used
Open Market Operations of the Federal Reserve System Functions of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) To many Americans, it may appear that U.S. monetary policy is the work of one man, Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board ("The Fed"). But that is only because Dr. Greenspan, while certainly an extremely powerful and influential person, is just the most visible of a number of powerful and influential
FEDs and MoneyAre CCs and Debit Cards Money?Credit cards and debit cards are not money but are actually considered tools or financial instruments that facilitate transactions in which money is exchanged. Both types of cards represent a convenient way to access and spend funds in a bank account (or made available to one via a line of credit). Because they are accessing different types of accounts, they act differently (Chand,
Federal Reserve in stabilizing the economy using monetary policy tools. The paper is divided into six major sections. The first section introduces the Federal Reserve by highlighting its objectives, roles, and composition. The second section explains its role and effectiveness in stabilizing the current U.S. economy. The next section discusses some important economic indicators which the Federal Reserve can analyze for better economic stabilization. The fourth section is dedicated
Macroeconomics The Federal Reserve System has been the central bank of the United States since 1913 and since its formation; the bank provides flexible, safer, stable financial and monetary system. Presently, the major duties of the Federal Reserve is to influence the monetary and credit conditions in the economy to pursue stable price, maximum employment, and moderate long-term interest rates. Open market operations, the reserve requirements and the discount rate are
Business US has faced acute economic crisis since 2008. Present economic crisis started from the downfall of housing sector which lead to the financial crisis such as bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (at that time fourth largest investment bank in the U.S.A.) and bankruptcy of largest insurance in world, the AIG (which were later saved by introducing bailout packages by U.S. government) which further collapsed production and unemployment plummeted. It is usually
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