The Federal Reserve has now accelerated its purchases of securities from the primary dealer banks for three consecutive weeks since chair Jerome Powell’s Nov. 3 announcement that it would begin to “taper” those purchases. They amounted to $40 billion in the week ended Nov. 24, making a $145 billion asset book increase over the three weeks, to $8.73 trillion in assets. Not exactly a “tapering” from the $120 billion/month QE-infinity rate since March 2020.
Powell may be imitating Joe Biden, who is “reducing America’s use of fossil fuels” at the moment by pulling up oil from the Strategic Reserve, granting some new offshore drilling leases and urging shale drillers to increase their production. “More oil now, less oil later” was Biden’s description of what he is doing. Not a poor attempt at a joke, Biden’s remark was obviously aimed at the “carbon colonials” to whom he is giving a prime example of what a Malthusian swindle and fakery was COP26.
The Fed has impressively “tapered” its loan-guarantee programs down to well under 1% of its assets, however, with Payroll Protection Program loan guarantees down to $43 billion and “Main Street Program” municipal bonds down to $21 billion; overall a $3 billion drop for the week and $34 billion drop in a year. Like the huge primary-deal zombie banks it keeps “alive,” the Federal Reserve itself does not do lending, just “trading” in securities.
