Thursday, January 6, 2011

Is the Federal Reserve Propping Up Europe, Again?

Forget the PIIGS. What's up with the EU itself?

The European Union was in the market yesterday attempting to sell 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in bonds. The money is earmarked to help finance the aid package for Ireland.

But a funny thing happened along the way to the money raise. The deal only got done because central banks and other "official" institutions stepped in to buy a big chunk, 38.5% of the allocation.

The issue was the first by the commission through its European Financial Stabilization Mechanism as part of the EFSM’s 22.5 billion-euro share of the 85 billion-euro Irish rescue. Not a good start.

The EU did not further disclose which central banks and "official" institutions were involved.

One has to wonder how active a player the Federal Reserve was in the deal, since its recent disclosures indicate they have been supplying large sums of money to prop up foreign banks, and they just announced the extension of their swap lines with them.

Said the Fed just a couple of weeks back:
The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized an extension through August 1, 2011, of its temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank. The swap arrangements, established in May 2010, had been authorized through January 2011.

1 comment:

  1. You need to end the Fed right away... I, being a EU citizen, can't really do it for you.

    Now the US is pretty much screwing up the entire world... you need to get rid of this Fed. Spread the word, support Ron Paul and other similar candidates.

    ReplyDelete