This is another QE/Quantitative Easing, even if they don't call it that way. I hope inflation doesn't come back/get higher again because then we'd likely see the kind of second wave inflation people saw in the 70s.
I assume banks went ahead and bought subprime mortgage bonds with that $300B. And at this point why not? Everyone knows that the government will print an unlimited amount of money to keep the system going no matter what risks you take and how careless you are.
So here's what I'm confused by. The writing was on the wall a year ago for rapid interest rate hikes. This has well-known and predictable effects on long-term bond holdings.<p>Why didn't banks liquidate their long-term bond holdings a year ago? I can guess the answer: they wanted to protect executive bonuses and share prices. They hoped they could just stick their heads in the sands and hold those bonds to maturity.<p>Another question: why even hold their liquidity in long-term bonds that are more sensitive to interest rate changes? Banks could've rolled 90 day Fed debt instead of 10+ year bonds. Again, I can guess the answer: long-term bonds have better yields so the bank can artificially improve its position (ie executive bonuses and share prices again) by adding risk to their depositor funds.<p>I'm happy to see the solution for poor financial management (eg SVB) is for the bank to be dissolved. Let shareholders bear the cost for poor management.
Id be curious to know how much physical currency has been withdrawn and if there are pressures on that. Inter-bank deposits are covered for people fleeing bad banks, but anecdotally I know a few people who are withdrawing all their hard cash. I wonder if central banks will have issues with that soon.
I think what we're learning from all this is that the people we trust with our money, the "financial sector", can't be trusted with our money
Why are we even doing the dance that banks need to keep short term assets on hand to satisfy deposit outflow? Can't they just buy whatever government bonds they want (if the federal government defaults and does not honor its debt there are bigger issues than some regional bank) and give them to the Fed in exchange for freshly minted money?<p>It's the end result in either case, but a lot of uncertainty and friction is added for some reason. Why?
The banks didn't need to buy those bonds back in 2021. The fed could have just done it and prevented all the ensuing drama once rates rose ahead of time.
The fed has backstopped the FDIC. Instead of letting taxpayers foot the bill, of which are majority of payers are the very wealthy, they will foot the bill via inflation by rolling back some of the QE. Sure it's just a loan but what if the loan has no one to repay. Who will repay this loan in SVB's situation (the shortfall of asset sales to account balances) maybe I am misunderstanding. The money to cover the shortfall of the FDIC was conjured. It will find a way to your grocery bill. If all the banks are paying a fee to foot the bill, the payers of that fee will be you the customer.
Is there anything preventing banks from buying treasures on open market by using funds they got from Fed by exchanging their treasuries on mark-to-maturity basis? Looks like a bailout with extra steps.