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Conor Clarke

Conor Clarke - Conor Clarke is the editor, with Michael Kinsley, of Creative Capitalism. He was previously a fellow at The Atlantic and an editor at The Guardian. More

Conor Clarke is the editor, with Michael Kinsley, of Creative Capitalism, an economics blog that was recently published in book form by Simon and Schuster. He was previously a fellow at The Atlantic and an editor at The Guardian. He is also on Twitter.

Back to worrying about monetary policy

By Conor Clarke
Mar 19 2009, 8:19 AM ET Comment

The Fed is injecting $1.2 trillion into the market by buying securities and government bonds. The Board of governor's press release is here. And an old op-ed from Robert Lucas on the subject is here:

When the Fed wants to stimulate spending in normal times, it uses reserves to buy Treasury  bills in the federal-funds market, reducing the funds' rate. But as the rate nears zero, Treasury bills become equivalent to cash, and such open-market operations have no more effect than trading a $20 bill for two $10s. There is no effect on the total supply of "quality" assets.

A dead end? Not at all. The Fed can satisfy the demand for quality by using reserves -- or "printing money" -- to buy securities other than Treasury bills.




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