Despite official rhetoric, the Fed is creating money out of thin air to buy short-term government debt. Labeled "reserve management purchases," this is functionally quantitative easing, designed to keep the government's borrowing costs from exploding.

Related Insights

The Fed's decision to launch large-scale Reserve Management Purchases (RMPs) ahead of schedule implicitly signals that its standing repo facility is not functioning as effectively as hoped. This suggests the Fed is opting to inject liquidity directly rather than rely on the facility, which may require future improvements.

The Fed's intervention in funding markets, while not officially labeled Quantitative Easing, directly helps the Treasury finance its debt, effectively monetizing it and providing critical liquidity to markets.

On paper, the Fed is shrinking its balance sheet to cool the economy (quantitative tightening). In reality, rate cuts and other channels are injecting liquidity into the financial system faster than it's being removed. This contradictory policy means that despite official tightening, actual liquidity conditions are already easing, fueling asset prices.

The Fed's T-bill purchases are a technical maneuver to manage bank reserves and avoid distortions in the bills market. Unlike Quantitative Easing (QE), the primary goal is not broad economic stimulus, but to ensure the smooth functioning of money markets, a critical distinction for interpreting Fed actions.

The common narrative of the Federal Reserve implementing Quantitative Tightening (QT) is misleading. The US has actually been injecting liquidity through less obvious channels. The real tightening may only be starting now as these methods are exhausted, signaling a significant, under-the-radar policy shift.

The plan to buy mortgage bonds is not a direct solution for homeowners but a form of money printing (QE). This move likely props up banks holding increasingly unattractive mortgages as housing prices are pushed down, effectively bailing out financial institutions rather than individuals.

The Fed's plan to reinvest maturing mortgage-backed securities (MBS) into Treasury bills is a stealth liquidity injection. The US Treasury can amplify this effect by shifting issuance from long-term bonds to short-term bills, which the Fed then absorbs. This is a backdoor way to manage rates without formal QE.

Over the past few years, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have been working at cross-purposes. While the Fed attempted to remove liquidity from the system via quantitative tightening, the Treasury effectively reinjected it by drawing down its reverse repo facility and focusing issuance on T-bills.

Under "fiscal dominance," the U.S. government's massive debt dictates Federal Reserve policy. The Fed must keep rates low enough for the government to afford interest payments, even if it fuels inflation. Monetary policy is no longer about managing the economy but about preventing a debt-driven collapse, making the Fed reactive, not proactive.

The Fed is cutting rates despite strong growth and inflation, signaling a new policy goal: generating nominal GDP growth to de-lever the government's massive, wartime-level debt. This prioritizes servicing government debt over traditional inflation and employment mandates, effectively creating a third mandate.