It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached.  (Photo: Public domain)

Was the Fed Just Nationalized?

Did Congress just nationalize the Fed? No. But the door to that result has been cracked open.

by Ellen Brown

For Common Dreams 3 April 2020:

It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached.

Mainstream politicians have long insisted that Medicare for all, a universal basic income, student debt relief and a slew of other much-needed public programs are off the table because the federal government cannot afford them. But that was before Wall Street and the stock market were driven onto life-support by a virus. Congress has now suddenly discovered the magic money tree. It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve is making over $4 trillion available to banks, hedge funds and other financial entities of all stripes; it has dropped the fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) effectively to zero; and it has made $1.5 trillion available to the repo market.

It is also the Federal Reserve that will be picking up the tab for this bonanza, at least to start. The US central bank has opened the sluice gates to unlimited quantitative easing, buying Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities “in the amounts needed to support smooth market functions.” Last month, the Fed bought $650 billion worth of federal securities. At that rate, notes Wall Street on Parade, it will own the entire Treasury market in about 22 months. As Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari acknowledged on 60 Minutes, “There is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve.”

In theory, quantitative easing is just a temporary measure, reversible by selling bonds back into the market when the economy gets back on its feet. But in practice, we have seen that QE is a one-way street. When central banks have tried to reverse it with “quantitative tightening,” economies have shrunk and stock markets have plunged. So the Fed is likely to just keep rolling over the bonds, which is what normally happens anyway with the federal debt. The debt is never actually paid off but is just rolled over from year to year. Only the interest must be paid, to the tune of $575 billion in 2019. The benefit of having the Fed rather than private bondholders hold the bonds is that the Fed rebates its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs, making the loans virtually interest-free. Interest-free loans rolled over indefinitely are in effect free money. The Fed is “monetizing” the debt.

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China’s deadly coronavirus cover-up: Sky News Special Report, Apr 5, 2020

Chinese journalists have shed light on their country’s deadly coronavirus cover-up which has led to tens of thousands of deaths and sent global economies crashing to a halt.

Sky News Australia presents COVID-19: Ground Zero – an investigation into what caused the killer coronavirus and how China managed to bury the truth for so long.

South China Morning Post news editor Josephine Ma told Sky News her government covered up more than 200 cases of coronavirus in 2019, delaying global warnings and allowing the spread of the virus to leak into other countries.

Ground Zero also details the incredible steps nations around the world are taking to minimise the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Heimbach “coming to the light”: another example illustrating the inherent instability of the right, including as a result of introducing its elements by means of third positionism.

Light Upon Light Shape Shifters - Matthew Heimbach, a Former White Nationalist. To struggle against hate we need…

Related at Majorityrights:

Heimbach & Parrott’s Jesus group acts into right wing altercast of YKW

Derek Black: “How a rising star of White Nationalism broke free.”

The countries concerned would help Greece do the right thing though - mancinblack

By Gabriela Baczynska, MSNBC 2 April:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union’s top court ruled on Thursday that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic had broken the law by refusing to host refugees to help ease the burden on southern states such as Greece and Italy after a surge in migrant arrivals from 2015.

The ruling underscores Europe’s bitter divisions over migration, though the three ex-communist nations face no immediate penalty as the relocation of tens of thousands of people agreed by the EU was only envisaged until 2017.

“By refusing to comply with the temporary mechanism for the relocation of applicants for international protection, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have failed to fulfil their obligations under European Union law,” the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union said in its ruling.

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