Following the long-term look at the federal government’s public debt in this item from a short time ago comes this long-term view of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet compliments of the recently stumbled upon Gresham’s Law blog.
Note that the graphic is interactive in its original form at Gresham’s Law and additional charts are provided that go into great detail regarding what the central bank was doing, money-printing-wise, over 10 year periods beginning in 1915. But, the most important point is made in the right-most portion of the graphic above where even a log-scale chart would indicate an astounding increase in Fed largess.
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
[...] Following the long-term look at the federal government’s public debt in this item from a short time ago comes this long-term view of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet compliments of the recently stumbled upon Gresham’s Law blog. READ MORE [...]
There has to be something wrong with the Fed loading up its balance sheet with Treasuries, but I have yet to find anyone who can tell me what the “wrong thing” is. Is it just more risk of inflation, and how long would that take?
Inflation down the road is one big concern, but another one is the “crowding out” effect where Fed buying U.S. debt discourages the public from buying and this leads to less demand and then rising interest rates that the Fed can’t control and, ultimately, Greece-like problems.