Why, then, has Berhnanke telegraphed that he is going to lower rates to 2.5% (50 basis points) two weeks from now?
The crisis of the abuses of banking is arrived. The banks have pronounced their own sentence of death. Between two and three hundred millions of dollars of their promissory notes are in the hands of the people, for solid produce and property sold, and they formally declare they will not pay them. This is an act of bankruptcy, of course, and will be so pronounced by any court before which it shall be brought. But cui bono? The laws can only uncover their insolvency, by opening to its suitors their empty vaults. Thus by the dupery of our citizens, and tame acquiescence of our legislators, the nation is plundered of two or three hundred millions of dollars, treble the amount of debt contracted in the Revolutionary war, and which, instead of redeeming our liberty, has been expended on sumptuous houses, carriages, and dinners. A fearful tax! if equalized on all; but overwhelming and convulsive by its partial fall.
Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper, as we were formerly by the old Continental paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burthen all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs. Prudent men must be on their guard in this game of Robin's alive, and take care that the spark does not extinguish in their hands. I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin. But our whole country is so fascinated by this Jack-lantern wealth, that they will not stop short of its total and fatal explosion.
~~Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814
The Fed has two big problems confronting it right now, and it has to choose between them.
One is that the banking system is suffering serious damage from all of the crappy loans and derivatives that they own. The Fed is hoping that cheap credit will save them from collapse.
The second problem is the value of the dollar. Or ‘lack of value’ - the dollar has been plummeting against commodities and other currencies. Cheap credit will only make that worse.
Evidently the Fed is more scared of big problems in the banking system than they are of the dollar losing value.