Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system. The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation’s hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis. Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets. The conversations, part of a broader exchange as to possible future steps in battling financial turmoil, are at an early stage. However, the fact that such a move is being discussed at...

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis. Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets. -snip-

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis. Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets.

The Gulf states' dollar pegs restrict their ability to draw out monetary policy suiting domestic economic condition, independent of the US policy stance, the former FOMC Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Most gulf states are experiencing record high of inflation, with Qatar reporting a 14% surge last year, followed by the UAE, Kuwait and other countries. Saudi Arabia's inflation hit a twenty seven year high of 7% in January, while UAE's inflation topped 9.3% in nineteen years during the month. The regional inflation average hit 6.3% in 2007, compared to 0.3% in 2001, according to Merrill...

US considers sanctions against Iran central bank - report WASHINGTON Thomson Financial - The US Treasury Department is considering sanctions against Iran's central bank, which it suspects of helping other Iranian institutions evade earlier US economic sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reported. Citing unnamed financial and intelligence officials from three countries, the newspaper said the impact of such a measure would depend in large measure on the extent to which US allies backed the effort. The nature of the sanctions under consideration has not been described. But The Journal pointed out that sanctions, particularly if supported by US allies in...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank on Sunday poured cold water on the idea that the country's economy can decouple from the United States. China's exports will be badly hit if U.S. consumption weakens, Zhang Tao, deputy head of the international department of the People's Bank of China, told a financial forum. Figures due this week are expected to show that China's gross domestic product grew more than 11 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 from a year earlier, despite a deepening U.S. credit crunch. But Zhang said he saw mounting risks to U.S. consumer demand. He noted that...

The Federal Reserve, working to combat the effects of a severe credit crunch, announced Friday it had auctioned another $20 billion in funds to commercial banks at an interest rate of 4.67 percent. Fed officials pledged to continue with the auctions "for as long as necessary." The central bank said it had received bids for $57.7 billion worth of loans, nearly three times the amount being offered, indicating continued strong interest in the Fed's new approach to providing money to cash-strapped banks. It was the second of four scheduled auctions. The first auction, on Monday, of $20 billion resulted in...

Panama Has No Central Bank By David Saied Posted on 4/26/2007 In this modern, post-–Bretton Woods world of "monetary order" and coordinated central-bank inflation, many who are otherwise sympathetic to the arguments against central banks believe that the elimination of central banking is an unattainable, utopian dream. For a real-world example of how a system of market-chosen monetary policy would work in the absence of a central bank, one need not look to the past; the example exists in present-day Central America, in the Republic of Panama, a country that has lived without a central bank since its independence, with...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican central bank governor Guillermo Ortiz on Wednesday urged the government and food companies to renew price caps for tortillas that have acted as a buffer against inflation. Tortillas, thin corn patties, are a staple of the Mexican diet. After a price rise began fueling inflation toward the end of 2006, the government pressured food producers and retailers to limit prices for corn flour and tortillas. "For consumers, the price containment so far has been a success, and from my point of view it is important that this containment continues," Ortiz told reporters, according to a...

Gold holdings by central banks and other government organizations declined for the eighth straight year in 2006, to the lowest in almost 60 years, figures from the International Monetary Fund show. Bullion holdings were 867.6 million ounces last year, down 1.2% from 2005, the Washington-based International Monetary Fund said on its Web site. That's the lowest since 1948, according to the World Gold Council. Gold climbed 23% last year as investors took up some of the supply through exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. „There is a lot of speculation some major central banks out of Asia or emerging countries will be...

MOSCOW. Sept 14 (Interfax) - Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank Andrei Kozlov died in hospital at 5.30 a.m. Moscow time (0130 hours GMT), following the attempted attack on Wednesday night, a medical source told Interfax. "Kozlov died without coming to," the source said. A medical source told Interfax earlier that Kozlov had heavily been wounded in the head, and had sustained less sever wounds in the chest and the stomach. The banker was operated on, with the operation completed at about 5 a.m. Moscow time (0100 hours GMT). The source also noted that Kozlov had been taken...

There is something about Bolivian President Evo Morales that doesn't inspire confidence in a prosperous, democratic future for his country. And it's not only the fashion statement he makes with the striped sweater he wears like a uniform. For a good many Bolivians it's the erosion of civil liberties under his leadership. Just ask Marcela Nogales, a 47-year-old mother of two pre-teens who holds a master's degree in auditing and financial control from Bolivian Catholic University in a joint program with Harvard University. Mrs. Nogales, who was the general manager of the Central Bank of Bolivia for five years until...

FREE TO CHOOSE: Anatomy of Crisis Friedman Delancy Street in New York's lower east side, hardly one of the city's best known sites, yet what happened in this street nearly 50 years ago continues to effect all of us today. Wall Street. Most of us know what happened here 50 years ago. Inside the Stock Exchange on October 29, 1929, the market collapsed. It came to be known as Black Thursday. The Wall Street crash was followed by the worst depression in American history. That depression has been blamed on the failure of capitalism. It was no such thing but...

Iraqi Dinar equality to dollar, Zubaidi suggests 27/06/2006 Source: Al-Sabah Finance ministry & Iraqi Central Bank study a suggestion about lifting off the worth of Iraqi dinar and returning back as the past. And the suggestion supported by the World Bank. Finance minister Bayan Jabr Zubaidi declared that he suggested on bank governor lifting off three zeros so dinar would be equal to dollar. on the other hand, he declared his support for national peace initiative.

[According to the former official, the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) shows feeble balance of assets. Should the government continue asking money from the bank, the international reserves will deplete gradually and monetary steadiness will be undermined. The only alternative is to reform again the BCV Law] The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) will go into technical bankruptcy in the event of continuing delivering assets to the Government with no valuable consideration, BCV Economic Research ex manager José Guerra cautioned. "Delivery of USD 6 billion in reserves last year, along with large indebtedness eroded the bank assets, and weakened its capital and...

The Bank for International Settlements has called on major economies in America, Asia and Europe to cooperate on financial policy in order to stabilise imbalances threatening the world economy. In its annual report, the BIS - known as the central bank of central bankers - praised global economic performance in the year to March 2005 but warned that there were hints of inflationary pressures building up similar to those in the late 1960s and 1970s. While it stopped short of recommending binding financial rules at international level - including the possibility of a single international currency or a return to...

A data base has appeared for sale in Moscow: bank transactions for the 4th quarter of 2004. Salesmen of this illegal data base last week sent emails offering the goods for sale. Within the data can be found even the biggest transaction of past year - the auction sale of 'Yuganskneftegaza', according to the newspaper 'Vedomosti'. Recall that in February of this year one could buy the central bank's data for the last year and a half, from April, 2003 to September, 2004. After this was made public, parliamentary deputies directed a demand to the Attorney General's office, that they...

The Bank of England (BoE) will likely keep interest rates steady at 4.75 percent for a sixth successive month at its latest meeting amid concerns over the strength of the British economy, analysts said. All 31 forecasters polled by AFP's financial news wire, AFX News, said they expected the BoE's nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to refrain from cutting the cost of borrowing. "There is considerable uncertainty about the state of the economy," Global Insight economist Howard Archer said, adding that "interest rates won't go anywhere this week". The exact state of Britain's faltering housing market and of consumer spending...

China's central bank may consider establishing a "super branch" in Shanghai to bring it closer to the marketplace. The move, reported in yesterday's edition of the Beijing Times newspaper, got its first confirmation on January 20 from People's Bank of China Shanghai Branch head Hu Pingxi. Hu was quoted as saying that the central bank aimed to "consolidate its resources and improve its operational efficiency" by setting up such a body in Shanghai. The Shanghai "super branch" will assist the central bank's decision-making processes by being in a position to obtain more relevant market information. But the Beijing headquarters of...