Examples Of How The Federal Reserve Helped Recovery

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How did the actions & decisions of key US policymakers, President bush, Obama & heads of federal reserves and the US treasury help or hinder recovery. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion banking rescue package enacted by the Congress in late 2008, controversial and failing to win enough votes first time round, was seen to be instrumental in helping recovery in the US economy. The TARP was perhaps only put through after the demise of the Lehman Brothers, a key decision by the Federal Reserves and the Treasury was not to bailout the Lehman Brothers. It was rather strange to let such a monumental investment bank declare bankruptcy, where Bear Stearns a much smaller investment bank had been saved only a few months earlier. …show more content…

The Federal Reserves took all measures necessary, reducing perception of risk, guaranteeing debts; hence investors don’t bear the credit risk and thirdly buying risky securities. The Fed promised to hold federal fund rate between 0-to-24-basis points range, both during and after the crisis, proving to be a stimulus in both stimulating and limiting damage to aggregate demand. Quantitative easing was the Feds most favoured and perhaps most influential unconventional approach to help recovery, The Federal Reserves decided not to implement various strategies such as raising inflation and reducing interest rate paid on …show more content…

Blinder encapsulated 10 commandments to learn from the financial crisis and to bear in mind for the future of finance. 1. “Thou shalt remember that people forget”: Prolonged periods of good financial periods should not cloud thinking; bubbles and risks should always be carefully assessed. 2. “Though shalt not rely on self-regulation”: Regulation is fundamental, government regulation rather than regulators who earn profit from the system. 3. “Thou shalt honor thy shareholders”: Shareholders need to better protected, corporate executives should be made accountable, thus taking better care of shareholders stake. 4. “Thou shalt elevate the importance of risk management”: Risk needs to better managed, regulators must verify rather than just trust, regardless of the status of the corporation. 5. “Thou shalt use less leverage”: High returns are often illusory, high leverage is associated with such. Leverage should be lessened as risk thereby reduces also. 6. “Thou shalt keep it simple”: Financial instruments should be symmetric; the financial system could do without