It's Time to Air Out Ben Bernanke's Dirty Laundy
Now that the Fed has engaged in QE 3 (which is essentially QE infinite since it's meant to run until things get where the Fed wants them), I decided to go back and count the recap the Fed/Feds' interventions since the Great Crisis began in 2007.
Here's a recap of some of the larger moves made during the Crisis: Cutting interest rates from 5.25-0.25% (Sept '07-today). The Bear Stearns deal/ taking on $30 billion in junk mortgages (Mar '08). Opening various lending windows to investment banks (Mar '08). Hank Paulson spends $400 billion on Fannie/ Freddie (Sept '08). The Fed takes over insurance company AIG for $85 billion (Sept '08). The Fed doles out $25 billion for the automakers (Sept '08) The Feds kick off the $700 billion TARP program (Oct '08) The Fed buys commercial paper from non-financial firms (Oct '08) The Fed offers $540 billion to backstop money market funds (Oct '08) The Fed agrees to back up to $280 billion of Citigroup's liabilities (Oct '08). $40 billion more to AIG (Nov '08) The Fed backstops $140 billion of Bank of America's liabilities (Jan '09) Obama's $787 Billion Stimulus (Jan '09) QE 1 buys $1.25 trillion in Treasuries and mortgage debt (March '09) QE lite buys $200-300 billion of Treasuries and mortgage debt (Aug '10) QE 2 buys $600 billion in Treasuries (Nov '10) Operation Twist 2 (Nov '11) QE 3 buys $40 billion in Mortgage Backed Securities every month from now on (Sept. '12)

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