Some recent events have led me to do some unusual research on several Federal Reserve policies.
Putting the research aside for the moment, I am continually amazed at how much great stuff is on the various Fed web pages. If you haven’t played with the various Regional Fed bank sites, you are missing an astonishingly deep resource.
Here’s a few links to get you started:
Federal Reserve Bank:
Board of Governors of Federal Reserve
http://www.federalreserve.gov/and all their Public Speeches
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/All About the Fed
http://www.federalreserve.gov/general.htmRegional Fed Bank (Map & Links)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/otherfrb.htm
Individual Federal Reserve District:
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
http://www.bos.frb.org/Boston Fed Publications
http://www.bos.frb.org/genpubs/index.htmFederal Reserve Bank of NY
http://www.newyorkfed.org/Fed Bank NY Research Publications
http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/publication_annuals/index.htmlFederal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
http://www.philadelphiafed.org/Philly Fed Research Publications http://www.philadelphiafed.org/econ/respubs/index.html
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
http://www.clevelandfed.org/Cleveland Fed Publications
http://www.clevelandfed.org/Pubs.cfmFederal Reserve Bank of Richmond
http://www.richmondfed.org/Richmond Fed Economic Research http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
http://www.frbatlanta.org/Fed Bank Atlanta Publications
http://www.frbatlanta.org/publ.cfmFederal Reserve Bank of Chicago
http://www.chicagofed.org/Chicago Fed Economic Research & Data
http://www.chicagofed.org/economic_research_and_data/index.cfmFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
http://www.stlouisfed.org/St. Louis Fed Publications
http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/Minneapolis Fed Publications
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
http://www.kansascityfed.org/Kansas City Fed Publications and Education Resources
http://www.kansascityfed.org/home/subwebs.cfm?subWeb=7Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
http://www.dallasfed.org/Dallas Fed Publications and Resources
http://www.dallasfed.org/pubs/index.htmlFederal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
http://www.frbsf.org/San Fran Fed Economic Research & Data
http://www.frbsf.org/economics/
That should be enough to get you started.
As you get deeper into each site, you will notice there is an astonishing depth and breadth of economic data at most of the various Fed Bank websites. Each Fed location seems to have developed their own emphasis, all have robust search features, lots of good data and analysis, and all sorts of great charts. (I really need to get a hobby)
Also, with this post, we rather belatedly introduce the category "Federal Reserve."
Speaking of the Federal Reserve, what is the economic community’s opinion on the Fed’s announcement that they will no longer be making available to the public M3 data?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/discm3.htm
The silence on the econ blogs on his subject is deafening, and yet to me it seems *huge*. Does it not create a curtain behind which the government can begin monetizing the federal deficit through (hidden) monetary inflation?
Why do I suspect that the only purpose of no longer publishing this data is to hide Repurchase Agreements?
-have been thinking about the same thing spud…
Warm up the presses!!!!!
The last report that includes M3 will be March of ’06. So the earliest possible unreported helicopter drop will be in April. And if this is really what they intend to do, they’ll start gradually.
Or perhaps just continue to do as they’ve been doing, which is this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18089544@N00/62589350/
Which is to say, inflating our money supply at about twice GDP.
My next question is this: After they stop reporting M3, what other indicators can we use (other than inflation, which is *very* lagging) to know what kind of monkey business they are up to?
I’m not an economist, but could this be the first of Bernanke’s moves towards making federal reserve more transparent? I mean, in the 1984, bizarro-world sense of the term like he actually meant it: “In an effort to let people know what we’re doing, we shall free them from the continued confusion caused by providing them with up to date information….”
While on the Fed sites, you should also check out their house publications – they’ve got some truly top-notch economic analysis going on, although to spare yourself the trouble of having to sort through the sites of all twelve branches, I do recommend filtering through the New Economist‘s blog.
Also, since you love charts, the Dallas Fed makes the best looking ones….
Ok! … Money tank M1, cash & checks, is part of M2 tank (including MMF’s)…
which, in turn, is inside larger M3 money tank (includes long-term institutional money).
Recent yearly growth: M1 = 2.7% … M2 = 3.8% … M3 = 7.9%
Could be the Fed is hiding the largest growth and
shows money is more institutional than under individual control).
‘… Isn’t that S p e c i a l … ‘
Can anyone provide other reasons for this action …
or is the Fed snookering the high growth of fiat money?
So… if monetizing the debt is the goal, we are about to see some huge inflation. How can we protect our money. Seems like a good time to start looking at pulling out the savings and investing in some tangible property. Or, is it too early for that?
This is one of those metrics that has been beaten into the heads of econ 101 students for so long that it seems impossible that it is suddenly going to be discontinued, or rather, go unreported, as I understand that they will still (naturally) measure it. What I still don’t get is the *why*. It’s sort of like “the weather network” suddenly declining to post rainfall stats… and I agree the silence is deafening. Econ-profs out there: what’s up?
And if you like fed-numbers, check out http://www.economagic.com, where you can get all the fed reports (and plenty of others) plotted or as excel for free – housing starts in Encino vs. MZM if you care…
pb