10 ms·
Doomsday Book (2006) [pdf]
- Tinatimothy 2y ago[flagged]
- jprd 2y agoI initially thought this was trolling due to the MS Comic Sans right up front.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Mistletoe 2y agoIs that Comic Sans on the second page?
- marcusestes 2y agoCame here to say the same thing. It’s a chilling font choice for a document like this.
- morsch 2y agoIt also reads hilariously like a document from the SCP wiki, blacked out passages and all.
- baryphonic 2y ago2006 was peak "Great Moderation," where there hadn't been any serious financial crises since the 80s. The consensus wisdom was that many of the policies of the 80s & 90s, particularly around inflation and reducing uncertainty, had made financial crises almost obsolete. It seems dark today given that we know the outcome, but I'm sure at the time, Comic Sans seemed appropriate for a set of tools that they thought likely would never be used. Or maybe it indicates a certain hubris undone within about 18 months.
- banku_brougham 2y agoStares in Long Term Capital Management
- grantsucceeded 2y agoprobably anyone this far in the thread remenbers long term capital managment, I did, but couldnt remenber if it was in the 80's or 90's. (1998) https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/longtermcapital.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/longtermcapital.asp
- asdff 2y agoWasn't 2006 just off the heels of the dot com bubble?
- divbzero 2y agoI bet they use Comic Sans for nuclear launch codes too.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoI guess if you’re at the precipice of a financial crisis, starting with laughs around the table isn’t the worst.
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- FrustratedMonky 2y agoThis seems like some pedestrian financial agreements. What is the TLDR on why it is called 'Doomsday'?
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- toomuchtodo 2y ago> The so-called Doomsday Book, an internal document used to guide the Federal Reserve’s actions during emergencies, has long been the subject of intrigue and suspicion. Largely a compilation of legal opinions, the book has been a key resource for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for decades, allowing it to play a unique and oversize role during financial crises. No other regional Federal Reserve bank has such a resource. > The book is a living document that records pivotal decisions made during times of financial distress. It played a crucial role in then New York Fed President Timothy Geithner’s decision to rescue Bear Stearns from bankruptcy in 2008. Economic system failure runbook. https://www.wsj.com/articles/sun-shines-on-new-york-fed-doomsday-book-foia-central-banking-financial-crisis-13d41d51 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sun-shines-on-new-york-fed-doom... | https://archive.today/YbgG7 https://archive.today/YbgG7 https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-new-york-federal-reserves-doomsday-book-has-been-partially-revealed/ https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-new-york-federal-reserves-do...
- tekla 2y agoIts explained on the first page italicized The “Doomsday Book” is a compendium of legal opinions, in some cases stretching back decades, that explore the legal limits of the Federal Reserve in the event of a financial crisis.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoEvery company has a disaster recovery plan. Seems like calling it 'Doomsday', is the question. It seems rather dramatic naming for a bank.
- 2y ago
- cj 2y ago> The Doomsday Book is intended to help lawyers of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York aid their clients in crisis management. It was originally distributed to a limited set of lawyers and select senior staff members. This has changed with time, as more lawyers are drawn into crisis management. Now, all FRBNY lawyers receive a copy of the Doomsday Book. Since the Doomsday Book seemed more confusing than helpful to non-lawyers, it is no longer distributed outside of the Legal Function. However, some individuals may have older versions on their shelves, and there is nothing wrong with sharing this version with clients. Page 44 of the PDF has a good overview of what this document is intended to be. Putting "Doomsday book" in the context of crisis management explains why this document exists. Basically, they don't want to be in the middle of a crisis and have legal uncertainties delay their ability to take action.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoIt seems to be a misnomer as I can’t imagine any ‘doomsday’ scenario where there would still be a functioning judiciary, Justice department, or any functioning clients for the FRBNY to help.
- ArnoVW 2y agoI think the fear is not that there is no justice to help them. The point is that when exceptional measures are needed, you want to know how far you can go, without it coming back to you in the months afterwards. It's a bit like InfoSec cyber incident playbooks: if customer data is being corrupted, can the production server be shut down? how bad does it need to be before the downtime no longer outweighs the corruption? who can take the decision? If you don't spell that out in advance, you may find yourself in a situation where you lose time unnecessarily.
- myself248 2y agoLike the Internet Archive feeling that "oh shit the entire society just shut down" in the days after Covid lockdowns started, and uncapping their digital lending because they were the only "library" you could still visit. And then getting sued six ways from sunday over it, years later when the crisis mood had faded and the help-people-any-way-we-can vibes were thoroughly forgotten. Time to make sure no good deed goes unpunished! Yeah. This document makes a LOT of sense.
- onionisafruit 2y agoFrom the name, I expected a list of the fed’s assets similar to the more famous Domesday Book. But this is more interesting.
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- CrimsonCape 2y ago"Please note that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the “New York Fed”) is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) although it complies with the spirit of FOIA when responding to requests of this type." Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not accountable to government laws, and by extension is not accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
- sambaumann 2y agothat same independence is the reason it's not subject to the political whims of whoever is in power at a given time, which is important for the long term health of the economy. "The people" did decide this - as congress gave the fed that independence
- aaomidi 2y agoThe independence could still have stipulations that require FOIA.
- npoc 2y agoSounds good until you discover that its the people who own the fed that are really in power. Everyone should read at least the first few chapters of "The Creature from Jekyll Island" to understand how much money (power) they have.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> until you discover that its the people who own the fed that are really in power This is nonsense. The President and Congress control the Fed. And nobody can knowledgeably claim, today, that its banking members (legally, its shareholders) are more powerful than America’s non-bank financial institutions (e.g. Blackrock or Brookfield). The greatest boon our billionaire class could inherit is a politically-controlled Fed. It’s why one of any autocrat’s first moves is bringing the central bank under their control.
- bix6 2y agoWild to me that they can choose which FOIA’s to answer. Anybody had one denied?
- bobmcnamara 2y agoThey're not "the goobermint", so not FOIAble.
- bix6 2y agoWhich is crazy as a quasi government agency supervised by a government agency.
- jfengel 2y agoYeah, it's weird. More separation of powers stuff. The intent is to be insulated from politics but not entirely divorced from the will of the people. As Calvin said, a good compromise leaves everyone mad.
- ynniv 2y agoThe people have no will at the Fed
- jfengel 2y agoThe Fed chair is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It's arm's length, to be sure, but I don't think most people would want too much more direct involvement.
- duped 2y agoThe people, generally, have no understanding of monetary policy either in theory or practice. It's a good thing the Fed isn't at the beck and call of the people.
- elzbardico 2y ago
- theodpHN 2y ago[flagged]
- arminiusreturns 2y ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoDid you get anything useful out of that summary that wasn’t on the first page?
- arminiusreturns 2y agoI did actually. I glanced through the first 10 and last 10 or so pages before I even thought of asking NotebookLM for a summary. I thought it might be appreciated by someone who wanted a slightly better summary.
- pvg 2y agoThat's great but please don't post LLM summary output into HN threads https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22generated%20comments%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- arminiusreturns 2y agoOh shit I missed that, haven't been very active lately, will edit out. Thanks.
- jbm 2y agoI wish this rule didn't exist. This was the only useful post to me in this whole thread and I missed it because of this nerd sniping. Well, more carbon emissions for me.
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- th4t1sW13rd 2y agoThe fact that one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world maintains a "Doomsday Book" of emergency legal procedures, named after the historic record of English lands commissioned by William the Conqueror, suggests they take very seriously the possibility of catastrophic financial crises requiring extraordinary measures. The document states explicitly that "The Doomsday Book is not, and can never be a finished product" - implying an ongoing need to prepare for new types of financial emergencies. This seems both novel and somewhat concerning, as it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system. The very existence and continuous updating of such a manual provides a window into how the Fed thinks about and prepares for potential crises.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> somewhat concerning, as it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system It’s concerning a regulator and lender of last resort considers what happens at the precipice of last resorts?
- ndileas 2y agoWould you prefer that they would not prepare for unusual circumstances? This is what any serious organization does when there are real stakes. Smart people sit down and gather information, think about likely scenarios, and write a playbook, updated over time. Seems like your response is a knee jerk entirely based on the optics of the name. The fed responding wrongly to a crisis, even a minor one, could cause enormous pain and suffering -- think famine. I don't have the expertise or patience to actually evaluate the contents of the document, but they are definitely doing the right kind of thing here.
- pjc50 2y ago> it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system Yes! That's the point! You don't want to arrive at a worst-case scenario unprepared! The US military has all sorts of files and plans on bizarre and implausible scenarios, mostly as intellectual exercises ("if we wanted to invade Canada, how would we do it?"). That doesn't imply anything about their likelihood.
- epa 2y agoPage 2, comic sans
- 0xEF 2y agoSomeone should be held accountable for this. Nevermind the redacted stuff. I want to know who to blame.
- wil421 2y agoBlame the interns!
- grantsucceeded 2y agoBlame for using comic sans ? :)
- ngriffiths 2y agoThis was my first reaction. Why? Trying to downplay the seriousness of the topic or something? Is it ever used in documents like this?
- joe_the_user 2y agoI read it more as "here's a page I wrote and printed-out on my nephew's computer during the holidays" unserious rather "I'm joking serious". It's not a page in book of collected opinions Fed official keep, it's the cover page for the public release. Like, "this old thing? It's kind of out-of-date and unimportant but you can take a look if you want". IE, there's a little effort to hide the significance of the document "in plain sight" here.
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- desireco42 2y agoFascinating to see how the Fed prepares for potential systemic financial crises with this 'Doomsday Book'. The name cleverly references the medieval Domesday Book, adapting that record-keeping concept to modern financial emergency preparedness. It's essentially a sophisticated crisis management playbook, similar to tech companies' incident response plans but with much higher stakes. The legal and operational complexity revealed here is truly mind-blowing
- mschuster91 2y agoGood lord what is up with that PDF? Half of it seems to be (badly) OCRd, some pages look like a TIFF with 50dpi or lower resolution... that's not what I'd expect to get returned in a FOIA request.
- Bengalilol 2y agoI certainly would have thought this 'book' could encompass the Great Depression (1929 and on). It is the most defined 'doomsday' we should all learn from and act upon. I bet it is hard for anyone to learn from a distant past. Then I understood it was very law centric and that nothing was made to prevent a blackout, but mainly to escape any legal process that could interfere with any crisis management. But my main focus was on the use of the Comic Sans font on page 1.
- divbzero 2y agoComic Sans was definitely my first reaction too.
- motohagiography 2y agohaving read and understood this doc seems like the bar for having an opinion about the role of the Fed and whether it should be "ended," "audited," or nationalized, given these crisis responses are a list of the essential functions for whatever might replace it.