Friday, November 20, 2009

The Fed has now become the "bubble police"



Now the Fed is trying to keep asset prices down, as the Fed's thinking is that they have to leave interest rates low, to allow the mortgage and CRE markets to heal. So they are checking "capital adequacy" of the bubble blowers, when the Fed is the one doing the blowing!

Monday Bernanke said there wasn't any bubbles. Now he's looking for them!


Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials are stepping up scrutiny of the biggest U.S. banks to ensure the lenders can withstand a reversal of soaring global-asset prices, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Supervisors are examining whether banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have enough capital for the risks they take, how much they know about the strength of their counterparties and whether risk managers have authority to influence bank practices and policies.