The Institutional Risk Analyst

One aspect of the Powell press conference that has received too little attention was Powell's comments about Warsh possibly replacing Reserve Bank presidents. “That would be the beginning of the end of the Fed’s ability to make monetary policy independently,” he said, but the media did not notice. As we discussed in our interview with Alex Pollock, the 1935 amendments to the Federal Reserve Act made the chairman the CEO of the agency with unilateral power to remove Reserve Ba

The year 2025 was another year of magical thinking ℅ Donald Trump, a man whose mere presence in the room causes everyone else to descend to their most base level. Trump came to Washington as a president who spurned convention and embraced crypto currencies. He rejected New Deal regulation and encouraging greed and self-interest in a way not seen since the years following the Civil War. The impact on financial markets is profound and may continue for some time.

Why does the US central bank need to pay interest on bank deposits at the Fed? Because we have $35 trillion in public debt. The interest rate on T-bills, bank reserves deposited at the Fed and reverse repurchase agreements (RRPs) issued by the Fed must be roughly the same.