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TFA has no idea what they are talking about. They are just adding the amount of rolled-over repos. For example, assume that I lend you $1000 for one day. The
by MatteoFrigo 5y ago
TFA has no idea what they are talking about. They are just adding the amount of rolled-over repos.
For example, assume that I lend you $1000 for one day. The following day you pay me back $1000 plus interest, and I lend you $1000 for another day. We keep going for 1000 days, rolling over the debt. TFA would say I have lent you $1M. In reality, I have lent you $1000 for three years or so.
- thawaya3113 5y agoThat’s unbelievable and makes no sense. Why would you cumulate overnight repos…
- MegaButts 5y ago> They are just adding the amount of rolled-over repos. Why do you think this?
- MatteoFrigo 5y agoTwo reasons. First, TFA states as much: "repo program that provided nearly $20 TRILLION in cumulative loans to Wall Street". Second, the Sep 2019 repo crisis is well-known, it lasted multiple weeks, and it was big enough that the Fed wrote a postmortem about it: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/what-happened-in-money-markets-in-september-2019-20200227.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/what... You can read the details, but the Fed offered very short-term loans in the range of tens of billions, rolled over for an unusually long time.
- thawaya3113 5y agoGood explainer on repos. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/01/28/what-is-the-repo-market-and-why-does-it-matter/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/01/28/what-is-t... It’s a large numbers market. I guess that’s why TFA liked it. It gave them big scary numbers to use.