Tag Archives: bank lending

Upping their game. However, I think that the explanatory narrative needs some work. Are these the controlling factors?FRBSL — On the EconomyDebt Monetization: Then and Now David Andolfatto, Vice President and Economist, and Andrew Spewak, Senior Research AssociateSee also Over-building as a factor?FRBNY — Liberty StrteetQuantities and Prices during the Housing Bust Sonia Gilbukh and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham

The unfortunate fact that bank deposits are considered money has one side effect: our mysticism about money extends towards banking. The apparent ability of banks to "create money out of thin air" seems unfair, and this leads to questions about what limits their ability to lend. The answer is a lot simpler than one might suspect. For any other business (with the possible exception of the resource industry), output is largely constrained by their ability to find customers that they can sell...

Courtesy of Dr. George Selgin comes this chart from FRED: Dr. Selgin has added a vertical line to indicate when the Fed imposed interest on excess reserves. I don't propose to discuss that here, since I have engaged in an interesting and spirited discussion with Dr. Selgin and others about it on both Forbes and Twitter. I am more interested in what else this chart shows. It is truly fascinating.The first thing to note is the fast rise in bank reserves from the latter part of 2008 onwards...