Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen keeps insisting that the banking system is “sound.” Is it though? Because it doesn’t look particularly sound.
In fact, we just witnessed the second-largest US bank failure ever.
Today is tax day.
I’m not pleased.
I don’t know about you, but that means my bank account balance will be significantly smaller later this evening. I’m going to have to write a big check. But hey, this is the price I pay for a more civilized society.
By hiking interest rates, the Federal Reserve has pulled some of the monetary stimulus out of the economy. While the Fed hasn’t done nearly enough to put the inflationary fire it lit with more than a decade of easy money, the cooling consumer price index (CPI) indicates that this has put a modest dent in price inflation — for now. But the Biden administration has opened the fiscal stimulus spigot even wider and this is mucking up the inflation fight. In fact, unless the federal government reins in spending, there is no way inflation will lose this fight.
That’s not going to happen.
With the CPI coming in slightly cooler than expected and producer prices unexpectedly falling, a lot of people think the Fed pivot is now in play and we will soon see an end to monetary tightening. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the possibility of a pivot, market reaction, and most importantly, the possible ramifications.
Price inflation continued to cool with March headline annual CPI coming in at 5%. This was lower than expected and may give the Federal Reserve some wiggle room to slow down or even end rate hikes.
But it’s a mirage.
Despite the cooling trend, price inflation remains well above the Fed’s target and victory in the inflation fight isn’t imminent.
Could the commercial real estate market be the next thing to break in this bubble economy?
The rampant money creation and zero percent interest rates during the COVID pandemic on top of three rounds of quantitative easing and more than a decade of artificially low interest rates in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis created all kinds of distortions and malinvestments in the economy and the financial system. It was inevitable that something would break when the Federal Reserve tried to raise interest rates in order to fight the price inflation it caused with its loose monetary policy.
In the week before it raised interest rates another 25 basis points to fight inflation, the Federal Reserve added more than $94 billion to its balance sheet. This was on top of the nearly $300 billion it piled onto the balance sheet in the first week of its bank bailout.
The balance sheet reveals that Fed has loaned banks nearly $400 billion in money created out of thin air in just two weeks.
The Federal Reserve is trying to walk a tightrope — in a hurricane.
After rate hikes resulted in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury stepped in with a bailout. With that hole in the dam seemingly plugged for the time being, the Fed pushed forward and raised interest rates by another 25 basis points at its March meeting.
In the wake of two major bank failures, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) deposit insurance effectively went to infinity. And there is no reason to believe it will be temporary.
As Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were toppling, the government rushed in to guarantee 100 percent of both banks’ deposits. It was touted as an emergency measure to maintain confidence in the banking system and prevent runs at other banks. In effect, it bailed out wealthy depositors at two failing banks.
The demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank was just the tip of the iceberg. As it turns out, hundreds of banks are at risk. This explains why the Federal Reserve and US Treasury rushed to provide what is effectively a bailout for the entire banking system.
In the first week, the Federal Reserve handed out more than $300 billion in loans through its newly created Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).
