Thursday, January 24, 2013

Federal Reserve's Holdings of U.S. Gov't Debt Hits Record $1,696,691,000,000

Today, the Federal Reserve revealed that its holdings of U.S. government securities (debt) had increased to an all-time record of $1,696,691,000,000.  (Yes, that is in trillions.)  This makes the Fed the single largest holder of U.S. government debt.  China comes in second at $1,170,100,000,000.  

And, I thought the Federal Reserve System was not suppose to monetize the debt of our government. I guess that I am just too naive and simply not with this whole "Quantitative Easing (QE) thing by the Fed.  In other words, what's all this worry about the debt ceiling when you have the Federal Reserve System that can simply create money out of "nothing" to purchase Treasury securities.  What's the problem?  The Fed is the enlightened one.  It knows exactly what it is doing.  Sit back and simply watch as the enlightened Fed utterly debases the U.S. currency through its monetary policies.  You know like keeping the dollar stable in value, which is one of its mandated goals.  Let's see how well that has worked.  The Fed was created by commercial banks in 1913, not by the federal government. Therefore, if you had $1 in 1913, the value of that $1 today would be worth "FOUR CENTS!"  To put it another way, that $1 in 1913 has lost 96% of its value in terms of purchasing power.

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