Do Ben and Tim = Thelma and Louise?

One cannot help but note that Team Obama is trying to derail serious proposals regarding financial reform for Wall Street at the G20 meeting, as we suggested they would.

The concerns raised by US revelations at the G20 today about new intelligence regarding Iran's secret underground nuclear facility have overshadowed financial reform and economic problems, and Gordon Brown's prescription yesterday that the G20 would become the new governing council for the world. It also stepped rather heavily on the House Hearings on HR 1207 "Audit the Fed" bill sponsored by Ron Paul and a good part of the Congress.

Why waste a crisis indeed. Especially when you can cop a two-fer.

Yesterday we put forward a somewhat lengthy piece on the Fed and reverse repos being considered titled Fed Eyes US Money Market Funds.

There is a key quote in there that we would like to highlight today.

The central bank is now considering dealing with money market funds because it does not think the primary dealers have the balance sheet capacity to provide more than about $100 billion... Money market mutual funds have about $2.5 trillion under management..."

Only 100 billion in available capital for a relatively risk free short term investment in the global banking system including the Primary Dealers, does seem a bit tight for a set of such 'well capitalized' banks, especially since they aren't making many commerical loans, preferring to speculate in the commodity and equity markets for daytrading profits.

BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Banc of America Securities LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Daiwa Securities America Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. , Jefferies & Company, Inc., J. P. Morgan Securities Inc., Mizuho Securities USA, Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Nomura Securities International, Inc., RBC Capital Markets Corporation, RBS Securities Inc., UBS SecuritiesLLC.

Couple that with the revelation reported some time ago at ZeroHedge and covered here, that the Fed is taking on more than 50 percent of the longer dated Treasuries, and there is only about Ten Billion left on their balance sheet for expansion, and you get the picture of a financial system not cruising into recovery but heading straight at a confrontation with harsh reality.

We have considered the possibility that the Fed is doing this to place exclusively AAA and Treasuries on the balance sheets of the Funds, aka the Shadow Banking System, who are holding some seriously awful garbage. But this does not quite make sense unless those reverse repos are of a very long duration or rolled over automatically for a long period of time. A proper program such as was extended to the banks where the Fed buys the assets outright would be that solution. It made more sense to us that the banking system is still very tight on good capital assets and liquidity.

Here is an update from ZH that is somewhat compelling if one understand the implications. Visualizing the Upcoming Treasury Funding Crisis.

"Summary: foreign purchasers are congregating exclusively around the front end of the Treasury curve, meaning that the primary net purchaser of dated bonds has been the Federal Reserve. As everyone knows by now, the Fed only has $10 billion left out of the $300 billion total allotted for Treasury QE. That should expire next week. ... The time of unravelling may be upon us sooner than most think."

Do Tim and Ben = Thelma and Louise?

As the Eagles sang:

"Take it, to the limit, one more time..."

Federal Reserve Eyes the US Money Market Funds

The Fed is holding a significant amount of assets on its books in the form of Treasuries. For example, the Fed has purchased an enormous amount of US Treasury issuance in the past six months as part of its quantitative easing program, aka monetization. It has also taken on tranches of mortgage debt obligations from the banks, purportedly to improve the banks capitalization profile because of the dodgy nature of the assets.

This has added significant short term liquidity to the system, much of it held by the banks for interest at the Federal Reserve itself.

At some point the Fed will wish to reduce the levels of liquidity in the system. One way to do this is by increasing interest rate targets. It can achieve this, for example, by increasing the amount it pays for reserves.

The traditional way for the Fed to drain liquidity is to conduct what is known as a reverse repurchase agreement, or reverse repo.

In a normal repurchase agreement or repo, the Fed purchases assets held by the banks, normally Treasuries, which obviously increases the 'cash' being held by the bank. A repurchase agreement is by definition for a specific amount of time. At the end of the period the Fed sells the asset back to the bank. The difference in amounts is the 'interest' which changes hands for the transaction.

There is also a type of purchase agreement with no buyback. It is known as a PMO, or Permanent Market Operation. These are used to add liquidity as the name implies, permanently.

A reverse repo is just the opposite. In this case, the Fed sells an asset from its balance sheet to an institution for 'cash' and thereby drains or takes cash liquidity out of the system.

Aren't Treasuries as good as 'cash?' Why does it matter whether a bank is holding Treasuries or cash on its books? Apparently not the case, at least for accounting and regulatory purposes. Remember that the next time someone tells you that banks do not need depositors. Sometimes they do.

Typically the Fed has only done this type of operation with a group of about twenty or so financial institutions known as the Primary Dealers.

According to this news piece, the reason the Fed is looking to the Money Markets is that, just like Willie Sutton, that's where the money is. There, and in the 401k's, and the IRA's.

The central bank is now considering dealing with money market funds because it does not think the primary dealers have the balance sheet capacity to provide more than about $100 billion... Money market mutual funds have about $2.5 trillion under management..."

To digress, please note that somewhat startling statistic. The Fed is going to the money market funds, because they think that the primary dealers among them cannot raise more than $100 billion dollar in liquid capital to take repos from the Fed, without impairing the banking system. If you look it up in the dictionary, try looking under 'fragile' or 'insolvent.'

Back on topic, there has been a longtime animosity between the banks, or at least what used to pass as a bank, and the money market funds. The funds are not covered by FDIC, are not regulated as banks, and typically pay higher rates of interest to depositors than conventional commercial banks. They tend to invest their funds in the commerical paper markets. It was the seizure of the short term paper markets that brought the money market funds to the brink, and a potential run on the funds, as fears grew that they would 'break the buck,' that is, the Net Asset Value of One Dollar for every dollar deposited.

Obviously this entire proposition is a bit puzzling on the surface, and is certain to raise fears of Fed shifting toxic assets from the banking system to the more 'public funds.' It is not a huge concern if these are truly repurchase agreements since the value of the assets will be backed 100 percent by the Fed. We would also assume that the Funds might be able to express some preference for Treasuries, rather than bundles of sludge backed by Joe Subprime Sixpack LLC.

It was also interesting today that in his testimony before the Congress which was widely ignored by the mainstream media, Paul Volcker had some very strong words about what is a bank, and what is not. Money market funds are not banks, and banks have no business using their banking platforms to fund proprietary trading operations that are merely seats at a rather risky virtual casino known as Wall Street.

We admit now as before that we do not fully understand the accounting system of the banking industry, having grown up on the productive side of the economy, but are learning quickly.

One thing we can judge is character, and the character of many of the actors on this stage appear to be less than trustworthy to say the least, especially in the Obama Administration and their cronies on Wall Street. In reviewing the biographies of many of the key players, we were struck by how few of them have ever done anything, built anything, in the productive economy. Its all about FIRE institutions and governments, and revolving doors where one is paid for connections and influence, and following orders.

Increasingly it seems that the Wall Street financial institutions, led by the gang of four, will push their power grip on the nation until something stops them. What that will be, no one can know for sure. The Ponzi scheme they have been running is starting to fall apart. The target bag holders, the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans seem to be slipping towards the exit. When the music stops, someone may be left with a big pile of worthless paper. It looks to us like the Fed is interviewing candidates.

And this is why we say:

The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into a balance between the productive and administrative sectors, before there can be any sustained recovery.

Reuters
Fed's exit strategy may use money market funds
Thu Sep 24, 4:02 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve is studying the idea of borrowing from money market mutual funds as part of eventual steps to withdraw stimulus, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The Fed would borrow from the funds via reverse repurchase agreements involving some of the huge portfolio of mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries that it acquired as it fought the financial crisis, the newspaper reported, without citing any sources.

This would drain liquidity from the financial system, helping to avoid a burst of inflation as the economy recovered.

The FT said Fed officials had in recent days held discussions with market participants on how it might implement such a scheme.

The Fed is considering whether to conduct a pilot scheme, but worries such a test might be seen as a signal that the central bank was about to drain liquidity on a large scale, the newspaper said. In the near term, a big drain remains unlikely, it added.

The central bank held interest rates at close to zero on Wednesday and upgraded its assessment of the U.S. economy, saying growth had returned after a deep recession.

The Fed also said it would slow its purchases of mortgage debt to extend that program's life until the end of March, in a move toward withdrawing the central bank's extraordinary support for the economy and markets during the contraction.

The idea of the Fed using reverse repos to help unwind policy is not new; Fed chairman Ben Bernanke identified them as a potential means of soaking up liquidity in July. But the market had previously expected the repos to be done with primary dealers, including former Wall Street investment banks.

The central bank is now considering dealing with money market funds because it does not think the primary dealers have the balance sheet capacity to provide more than about $100 billion, the Financial Times said.

Money market mutual funds have about $2.5 trillion under management so they could plausibly provide between $400 billion and $500 billion, it said.

The newspaper added that the Fed did not think it would need to drain liquidity all the way to where it was before the crisis, because it was confident it could raise interest rates even with a much larger amount of reserves in the system than existed before the crisis.

Daily Charts for Gold, Silver, Miners and Oil

Gold call options were expiring today, and there was a concentration of options with a strike price of 1000. Let's see if the metals can find a footing or if this correction from a short term overbought condition must continue further.

From UBS:

"October options expiry on Comex will take place at 2000 GMT today, and the greatest nearby open interest for October gold is at the $1000/oz strike... $950 and $1050 strikes also have very large open interest - and that open interest between $950 and $1000 is larger than that between $1000 and $1050. We believe this is a consequence of the recent quick move higher in gold from $950/oz rather than options traders explicitly expressing a preference for the downside. Given the large open interest at the $1000/oz strike, we would not be surprised if gold remains close to this level today, barring a sharp move in EURUSD. To the extent that long October-expiration positioning in the market may have been constraining the range, however, the rolling off of October options should free gold to make larger moves."

More Smoke from the Federal Reserve On Their Opaque Operations in the Markets

Lots of smoke, but not quite a smoking gun, since the Fed representatives can always come back and claim that they were speaking hypothetically, and that the information was being withheld IF it indeed exist.

This highlights the problem of proving something wherein another party has the ability to stonewall and hide their operations. If the Fed was more transparent, then this would not be an issue.

I have been looking into this issue for some time, and have concluded that there is indeed plenty of smokescreens coming out of the Fed on a number of fronts. Some seem legitimate, but many do not. The Fed seems to want its independence, but also a position of power that is integration to the political and administrative policies of the US, more properly the domain of the public representatives.

Perhaps it is more or less innocent, but it does highlight how utterly inappropriate the Fed will be as a choice for a 'super regulator' of the financial system, seeming accountable and forthcoming only when they feel like it.

If this proves to be true, Greenspan is guilty of lying in his testimony to Congress, and most likely Bernanke as well. The Fed would also be implicated in expropriating US assets for its own purposes of rigging public markets far beyond their charter, since gold is hardly a foreign currency these days. They may as well be manipulating the price of oil or corn or wheat to suit their financial engineering. The permission to swap gold which belongs, not to the Fed, but to the American people via the Treasury, can only be granted by Congress.

I have also concluded that the Obama team wishes to broaden the powers of the Fed because this provides additional centralized and opaque power to the federal government. Both the Democrats and Republicans in the US seem to favor this.

As a semi-private organization, owing its allegiance both to the government, but even moreso to its private owners, the Fed should not and cannot be seriously considered for broader powers over more markets. They are hopelessly conflicted in their various agendas and loyalties already.

Business Wire
Federal Reserve Admits Hiding Gold Swap Arrangements, GATA Says
September 23, 2009
09:30 AM EDT

MANCHESTER, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Federal Reserve System has disclosed to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. that it has gold swap arrangements with foreign banks that it does not want the public to know about.

The disclosure, GATA says, contradicts denials provided by the Fed to GATA in 2001 and suggests that the Fed is indeed very much involved in the surreptitious international central bank manipulation of the gold price particularly and the currency markets generally.

The Fed's disclosure came this week in a letter to GATA's Washington-area lawyer, William J. Olson of Vienna, Virginia denying GATA's administrative appeal of a freedom-of-information request to the Fed for information about gold swaps, transactions in which monetary gold is temporarily exchanged between central banks or between central banks and bullion banks. (See the International Monetary Fund's treatise on gold swaps here.

The letter, dated September 17 and written by Federal Reserve Board member Kevin M. Warsh (here), formerly a member of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, detailed the Fed's position that the gold swap records sought by GATA are exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Warsh wrote in part: "In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under Exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of Exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you."

When, in 2001, GATA discovered a reference to gold swaps in the minutes of the January 31-February 1, 1995, meeting of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee and pressed the Fed, through two U.S. senators, for an explanation, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan denied that the Fed was involved in gold swaps in any way. Greenspan also produced a memorandum written by the Fed official who had been quoted about gold swaps in the FOMC minutes, FOMC General Counsel J. Virgil Mattingly, in which Mattingly denied making any such comments. (See here.)

The Fed's September 17 letter to GATA confirming that the Fed has gold swap arrangements can be found here.

While the letter, GATA says, is far from the first official admission of central bank scheming to suppress the price of gold (for documentation of some of these admissions, see here and here), it comes at a sensitive time in the currency and gold markets. The U.S. dollar is showing unprecedented weakness, the gold price is showing unprecedented strength, Western European central banks appear to be withdrawing from gold sales and leasing, and the International Monetary Fund is being pressed to take the lead in the gold price suppression scheme by selling gold from its own supposed reserves in the guise of providing financial support for poor nations.

GATA will seek to bring a lawsuit in federal court to appeal the Fed's denial of our freedom-of-information request. While this will require many thousands of dollars, the Fed's admission that it aims to conceal documentation of its gold swap arrangements establishes that such a lawsuit would have a distinct target and not be just a fishing expedition.

In pursuit of such a lawsuit and its general objective of liberating the precious metals markets and making them fair and transparent, GATA again asks for financial support from the public and from all gold and silver mining companies that are not at the mercy of market-manipulating governments and banks. GATA is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit educational and civil rights organization and contributions to it are federally tax-exempt in the United States....