Saturday, July 25, 2015

The Federal Reserve Data Release Error: The Data was Released Five Years Early!



As reported here at EPJ, confidential Federal Reserve staff forecast data, prepared for the June Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, was released online in error early by the Federal Reserve.

How early?

There is generally a five year lag before such data is released, that is, the data was not supposed to be publicly released until 2020.

The Fed on Thursday referred the matter to its inspector general and on Friday alerted financial-market regulators. The Fed on Friday also notified its congressional overseers, the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, reports WSJ. It also released a public statement.

The bungling did not stop, however, with the early Friday statement announcing the error, by late Friday the Fed issued a second statement reporting a correction to the first error correction statement. 

It didn't take long for House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), who appears to be after Fed Chair Janet Yellen, to respond:
It regrettably appears once again that proper internal controls are not in place to safeguard confidential Federal Reserve information.To say these recurring leaks at the Fed are troubling is a serious understatement and points to the urgent need for accountability reforms.
“For those wanting to bash the Federal Reserve to score political points, this is pure gold,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Guggenheim Securities. “It fuels the perception of some that the Federal Reserve cannot be trusted with the economy.”

  -RW 

2 comments:

  1. "Trust us to manage the economy."
    Spoken like a true socialist.

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    1. Yeah, that jumped out at me too. where the hell does it say ANYWHERE that the FED is supposed to run the economy (legally).
      As we used to say to pushy kids back in the schoolyard: 'Who died and made YOU King??".
      I think the zombies in Congress were just relieved to have some "adult" tell them what to do (they struck gold with Volcker, but then they got Greenspan). So they just let the FED assume vast new powers to get themselves off the hook. Much like they've done with the Executive Branch.
      By the way, this is NOT meant to say that ANY branch of government should be "managing the economy".

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