I've said before that when the Great Recession becomes old and quaint
enough to be put into a children's book, authors are going to have to
find
words that rhyme with Bernanke.
That's for Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose
herculean efforts to flood the banking system with capital has been key
to keeping our banks afloat and our economy undead. And the good news
is that the Fed now sees it fit to draw back its historic rescue
efforts. Here's a graph from the Wall Street Journal Real Time
Economics blog that shows
just that:
To
be sure, the Fed's balance sheet is still considerably higher than its
steady days before the crisis hit. But we're down under $2 trillion for
the first time since March. The one area where the Fed seems to have
expanded recently is in its buying of troubled mortgage-backed
securities -- that is bonds that pay out from a pool of mortgages. You
can click through to see an interactive version of the graph
here.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/the-federal-reserves-magical-balance-sheet/20730/
