U.S. taxpayers are also the big losers. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is ballooning again as a result of these repo loans and is now back over $4 trillion. If its balance sheet is this big now, what’s going to happen if Wall Street blows itself up again and the Fed has to intervene as a legitimate lender of last resort. Are we looking at an unthinkable $8 trillion balance sheet at the Fed? U.S. taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for any losses at their central bank.
U.S. investors and U.S. citizens are also the big losers. A euphoric stock market undermines the case in Congress for making the critically-needed reforms of Wall Street’s mega banks before they blow themselves up again with derivatives.
And, finally, the next generation and their children are the ultimate biggest losers of all. By funneling cheap loans to Wall Street’s trading houses instead of using its bully pulpit to demand reforms at the casino-like mega banks, the Federal Reserve is aiding and abetting and guaranteeing that the next market crash will be worse than it needs to be. That crash will result in more fiscal spending to shore up the economy, ballooning the national debt exponentially. This will mean that our children and their children will experience a blighted standard of living as more and more of Federal tax revenues are diverted to service the debt load instead of going to healthcare, education, and rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
None of this seems to have been properly deliberated at the Fed. Based on its minutes, its main concern appears to be that the Wall Street banks borrowing from it might end up being “stigmatized.” The insular Fed needs a hard reminder from Congress as to whose interests it is supposed to serve.