One Election Takeaway: Voters Hate Temporary Safety Nets
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Notes on the Crises
Here Are the 30,000 Pages of Federal Reserve Board Meeting Minutes I Got Through FOIA. They Completely Rewrite Federal Reserve History.
For the past year and a half I’ve increasingly focused on using FOIA to scrutinize the Federal Reserve. Before I unveil the crown jewel of what I’ve accomplished so far, I think it's worth stepping back and saying why I’ve undertaken such a broad project.
From Relic to Indispensable: How the Federal Reserve Nearly Gave Up Its Emergency Lending Powers in 1967
Perhaps the most shocking thing I have come across in the minutes is that the Federal Reserve very nearly got rid of its own emergency powers.
The Fed Should Create a Hurricane Crisis Facility
The Federal Reserve should create a Hurricane crisis facility. Massive hurricanes are "unusual and exigent circumstances" and should be treated as such.
Revealed: The Federal Reserve’s Secret 1973 Plan to Bailout the Saving & Loan Industry That Very Nearly Happened
An update on my major project of the moment: launching my 30,000 page database of FOIA minutes. All of the minutes have been uploaded to my website, but generating an accessible and
The New York Federal Reserve’s “Doomsday Book” Has Been (Partially) Revealed
Yet, as successful as I have been at using FOIA regarding the Federal Reserve, I didn’t have the biggest Freedom of Information victory against the Federal Reserve System in 2023 (that had to wait for this year). Not by a long shot.
Revealed: The Seven Secret Federal Reserve Books I Won Through FOIA
Nathan Tankus reveals seven secret books authored by a very important Federal Reserve general counsel that he unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act request
Paul Volcker’s Secret December 1973 Phone Call to Fed Chairman Arthur Burns Revealed
Nathan Tankus writes about a secret phone call between Paul Volcker and Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns to save the Treasury from debt ceiling driven default
More FOIA Findings: The New Nixon Administration’s Debt Ceiling Dilemma and the Federal Reserve’s Solutions
Nathan Tankus covers his latest FOIA finding from the Federal Reserve regarding its response to Treasury debt ceiling struggles in 1968
I Got the Fed to Release its 2011 “Treasury Default” Playbook. Here’s What it Says and Why it Matters.
Subscribe Readers may recall that I wrote a Politico Op Ed at a critical moment in the debt ceiling showdown. That piece, was entitled “Biden Can Steamroll Republicans on the Debt Ceiling”, and
I Was Wrong About Post-SVB Treasury Market Strains- Here’s Why
Subscribe On March 16th 2023, the Thursday after Silicon Valley Bank Failed, I published a piece entitled “What's going on with Treasuries? Silicon Valley Bank and the incoherence of the Federal
There Are No Simple Answers in the “Greedflation” Debate: A Response to Economist Marc Lavoie
Subscribe Long time and close readers of Notes on the Crises will be aware that I’m a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) scholar. More than three years ago now I published written remarks