From Relic to Indispensable: How the Federal Reserve Nearly Gave Up Its Emergency Lending Powers in 1967

The Federal Reserve’s most expansive lending authority- supposedly activated only under “unusual and exigent circumstances”- continues to be an essential interest of mine. Writing about it is what I became known for, back in 2020. Why is it so important? Because it is an extremely flexible and powerful power, there has been little oversight over how it's interpreted and what its limits are and we still don’t really know its secret history. The 1967-1973 minutes I got through FOIA are revelatory and fascinating. We still have to address a large gap between 1974, and sometime in the 2000s (if not later). Nevertheless, the minutes still have so much to teach us. 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.