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Federal Reserve officials are starting to build a case for a new program of buying mortgage-backed securities to boost the ailing economy, though they appear unlikely to move swiftly. The idea would be to target any new efforts by the central bank at the parts of the economy that are most severely impeding a recovery—the housing and mortgage markets—by working to push down mortgage rates. Lower mortgage rates, in turn, could encourage more home buying and mortgage-refinancing, and help the economy by freeing up cash for consumers to spend on other goods and services. Mortgage rates are already very low,...

Bernanke to Senate Democrats: Don’t expect more stimulusBy Alexander Bolton - 10/20/11 04:42 PM ET Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Senate Democrats Thursday they should not expect additional monetary stimulus from the Fed, putting pressure on them to pass jobs and deficit-reduction legislation. Some Democratic lawmakers have urged the Fed to take more aggressive steps to spur the economy and lower the national unemployment rate. But Bernanke said he’s done all he can to boost confidence through monetary policy, putting the ball in Congress’s court. “He’s said he’s done all he can do on the monetary side, and I...

Politics: You'd think a Republican debate on the economy would be a perfect time to blast Obama policies as an unmitigated disaster. Yet Obama escaped largely unscathed. Whom do these folks think they're running against? If aliens landed Tuesday night and managed to find the GOP debate on Bloomberg TV, they might think the GOP candidates were running against Ben Bernanke, someone named Dodd-Frank, Obama-Care and China. Newt Gingrich focused his ire, for example, on Bernanke, saying he's "the first person to fire." Michele Bachmann went on about Dodd-Frank, calling it "the jobs and housing destruction act." Rick Santorum said...

Newt Gingrich is asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement at the Bloomberg debate in New Hampshire: New Gingrich: "If they want to change things, the first thing to do is fire Bernanke, who is a disaster as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The second person to fire is Geithner. The fact is, in both the Bush and the Obama administrations the fix has been in. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to be angry. But let's be clear about who put the fix in. The fix was put in by the federal government. If you want to put people...

Load Up On Gold and Silver As Bernanke Dives Off The Deep End Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Oct 06, 2011 - 07:41 AM By: Money Morning Martin Hutchinson writes: I first thought U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was being deceitful when he denied the existence of inflation - but now I'm beginning to think he's simply delusional. Anyone who watched or listened to Bernanke's Oct. 4 congressional testimony must have reached the same conclusion. "Persistent factors continue to restrain the pace of recovery," Bernanke said. Then the Fed Chairman promised to consider yet more stimulus "to promote...

Occupy Wall Street is at the stage where major names are starting to throw their support behind the movement (even as some politicians feel the need to denounce it). Here's two "endorsements" from unexpected places: — Bernanke (really!) said during his testimony yesterday that he can't blame the protesters. Think Progress has the quote: "BERNANKE: I would just say very generally, I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what’s happening. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they’re dissatisfied with the policy response...

... Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly warned Congress on Tuesday of what most of America has sensed for some time: The economic recovery, such as it is, "is close to faltering." ... Bernanke's exchange with lawmakers seemed to capture the growing belief that no one is prepared to help the global economy in any meaningful way anytime soon. Speaking in unusually frank terms, he also captured the nation's sour economic mood. ... Bernanke told Congress there was little the Fed could do about Europe's problems. ... Bernanke said he believes the Fed's latest move to help the economy would...

Bernanke’s Plot To Overthrow The US Dollar By Bill Bonner 09/30/11 Paris, France – Where’s the Bastille…? The Dow got a boost yesterday — up 143 points. Gold remained where it was — about $1,617. Dear Readers know what we think. The Great Correction has a lot of work to do — there are so many things that need correction. And it will take time to do it. Meanwhile, your goal as an investor is to lose less money than everyone else. He who loses least wins! Stocks should go down. Real estate should go down. Even gold should go...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is renewing his criticism of the Federal Reserve Board, saying it must be more transparent.</p> <p>The Texas governor repeats in a CNBC interview that if elected president, he wouldn't reappoint Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman.</p>

Two weeks ago, the media's heart went aflutter when it learned that the president had borrowed a page right out of ole' Joe McCarthy's communist witch hunt book with the launch of Attack Watch. The response by everyone, even fans of Obama, was immediate and brutal. Yet where Obama took about 24 hours to crash and burn, someone else has stepped in with a far stealthier method of ferreting out the traitors amongst us: none other than our old friends, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, which in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed...

The economy is a fraud. It has been setup in such a way that it is a self perpetuating parasite borrowing on itself. The government steps in and props it up just as it starts to fail with help from the private corporation known as The Fed. The economy is in worse shape that people realize right now but surprisingly the dollar is still rising. The dollar is still gaining value because people are buying dollars and treasuries as they sell stocks. The concern is when people start fleeing the dollar the real crisis will come and unfortunately we seem...

Not that anyone noticed, but a pack of naïve college students and aging hippies trying to recapture their youth descended upon Wall Street last weekend. They targeted the ubiquitous villains, “Greed” and “Corruption” wishing to demolish a system unfairly favoring the “Rich.” I agree. Not with ousting capitalism, but implementing it. Washington ought to cease its incessant interventions, which betray the ideals of freedom and markets. Far too much collusion links Washington and Wall Street coddling those Jefferson deemed “moneyed interests.” Wealth shouldn’t manipulate government. It’s an abomination. Such outrages extend beyond Wall Street. Government interjects itself into a plethora...

DJI 10,808.87 Down -315.97 -2.84%

STOCKS CRATER AFTER BERNANKE ANNOUNCEMENT: Here's What You Need To Know Joe Weisenthal Sep. 21, 2011, 4:00 PM Finally, after all the anticipation, we finally got the big FOMC announcement. And as expected we got Operation Twist. And as for so frequently happens when something expected happens, stocks fell on the news. But first, the scoreboard: Dow: -281.36 NASDAQ: -47.32 S&P 500: -34.08 And now the top stories: * To start, today was all about the Fed. Europe was abnormally quiet, with very few shock headlines coming out. It sounds like Greece is getting closer to a deal with the...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday, acting in the face of a weak economic outlook, decided to start a program to twist the yield curve by swapping shorter-maturity government securities for longer-dated ones. In a statement, the Fed will buy $400 billion of Treasury securities in the 6-30 year range and sell an equal amount of maturities of 3 years or less. The Fed also announced a new plan to purchase agency mortgage-backed securities with proceeds of maturing securities.

Stocks are tumbling harder now, despite a slightly more generous than expected Fed announcement. Was it the fact that the Fed was delayed by a copier jam? Was it the three dissents? Maybe. Or maybe it’s this striking downgrade of the economic outlook: In this statement, the Fed said: “Moreover, there are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets.” In its prior statement, the Fed said simply: “Downside risks to the economic outlook have increased.” The Dow is down 130 points to 11277. The S&P is down about 16 points. The Nasdaq is down 6 points.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday dialed up its aid to the beleaguered U.S. economy, launching an effort to put more downward pressure on long-term interest rates over time and help the battered housing sector. The Fed said it would launch a new $400 billion program that will tilt its $2.85 trillion balance sheet more heavily to longer-term securities by selling shorter-term notes and using those funds to purchase longer-dated Treasuries. It will now also reinvest proceeds from maturing mortgage and agency bonds back into the mortgage market, an acknowledgement of just how weak conditions in the sector...

There are widespread expectations that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will today unveil the latest initiative intended to give the economy a boost. Action is likely to come in the form of shifting funds into longer-term holdings, with the intention of lowering Treasury yields and reducing rates on mortgages and other loans. Industry insiders apparently call it “Operation Twist.” But while we wait for word from the Fed, congressional Republicans aren’t just sitting around — they’re actively lobbying Bernanke, pressing him to let the economy stay on its downward trajectory and to not even try to help. Even though the...

A sharply divided Federal Reserve is expected to take modest steps Wednesday to bolster stagnant growth and hiring amid European debt woes. The efforts likely won't have a dramatic impact, analysts say. But inflation concerns may preclude stronger medicine, and in any case prior doses of shock-and-awe easing didn't result in a self-sustaining, robust recovery.

Dear Chairman Bernanke, It is our understanding that the Board Members of the Federal Reserve will meet later this week to consider additional monetary stimulus proposals. We write to express our reservations about any such measures. Respectfully, we submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people. It is not clear that the recent round of quantitative easing undertaken by the Federal Reserve has facilitated economic...