Weekly Update: U.S. Debt/Fed Assets
April 9, 2009 – 4:39 pm
I will be updating this info each week in order to track fiscal and monetary policy from a bird’s eye view. (For those interested, a tutorial regarding this data here.)
According to the Treasury Dept., Total U.S. Public Debt Outstanding increased $42.1 billion this week to $11.15 trillion.
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According to the Fed, average assets on its balance sheet increased $21.0 billion this week to $2.12 trillion. The increase was due primarily to $19.3 billion of Treasury bond purchases, i.e. printing money to fund government borrowing.
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5 Responses to “Weekly Update: U.S. Debt/Fed Assets”
Regarding the 2.12 Trillion Fed Assets… Do you add this to the 11.15 Trillion Treasury Debt?
By Ed on Apr 9, 2009
Ed,
They are two different balance sheets. Think of the Fed like a super bank, with its own balance sheet and a magical technology that allows it to manufacture dollars from thin air.
The public debt is what is owed by U.S. taxpayers to holders of Treasury bonds and to the Social Security system.
By RolfeWinkler on Apr 9, 2009
I think the economy is on its way back. Look at the stock market, it is on fire, the greatest rally since the 30′s.
This recession was all about stock market manipulation. They brought the stock prices down, which cut off lending and brought brokerage houses and banks to thier knees.
This Market will go back up to over 14,000 the dow. The insiders make money going up and when it goes down. They make huge gains in the options market. All us blogers have no idea about all this economic talk…..it’s all bullshit a waste of time. Macroecnomic, microeconomic its all a waste of time.
What a college course should say is don’t read the book, economics is fixed and their are too many variables of which 90% is manipulation of stocks , bonds, commodities, currency, banking , insurance.
By Dave Triol on Apr 9, 2009
@Dave T: Your 1st sentence was facetious, right? It’s rather difficult to detect irony in short blogs sometimes.
Anyway, I read a plausible opinion just earlier today in another blog (I’m sorry I can’t be specific; I can’t recall which one right now) that all the previous, post WWII, recessions were engineered by the Fed. but this one is happening in spite of all the Fed’s actions.
In other words, they’ve lost control & are now flailing about trying to pretend they haven’t.
I am not knowledgable enough to certify the prior “engineering” but I do believe I can recognize flailing when I see it.
By shinola on Apr 9, 2009
No the fed loves to say it messed up before and won’t do it again. What’s important is to understand the fed is less powerful but still contributes to the problems. For instance something you could recognize is that house price increases were not counted in the inflation numbers so interest rates were kept lower which can be directly attributed to the fed.
By James on Apr 14, 2009