Re: Bernanke missing the point on repo


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(email exchange)

The Fed already has thousands of designated agents, the banks, to lend and take in deposits.

If I were in charge I’d eliminate the cap on FDIC insured bank deposits and legislate any insured pension funds keep their excess cash in insured deposits.

And borrowers can go to the banks as well.

And if I wanted spreads narrower that could also be done via adjusting capital requirements and risk weights as desired.

>   
>   On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Pat wrote:
>   
>   Bernanke is lending credence to our idea of a centralized, regulated exchange for repo which
>   we have been calling the RPX project.
>   

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke — At the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.

Mar 10 (Federal Reserve) — The Federal Reserve and other authorities also are focusing on enhancing the resilience of the triparty repurchase agreement (repo) market, in which the primary dealers and other major banks and broker-dealers obtain very large amounts of secured financing from money market mutual funds and other short-term, risk-averse sources of funding.


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EU Finance Chiefs Rebuff US Calls to Boost Economic Stimulus


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Yes!

Europe Snubs US Calls for More Stimulus Before G-20

by Jennifer Ryan and Agnes Lovasz

Mar 10 (Bloomberg) — European finance ministers rejected calls from the U.S. to do more to battle the economic crisis, saying stimulus plans already in place need time to work.

“Recent American appeals insisting that the Europeans make an additional budgetary effort to combat the effects of the crisis were not to our liking,” Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said yesterday after leading a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs in Brussels. “We want to see what the effect of the recovery package is going to be.”


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Iraq and Iran holding hands


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Well done- we facilitated the realization of the dream of the Iraq-Iran Shiite super state Saddam had been keeping apart.

Iraqi president meets top Iranian leaders

Feb 28 (AFP) — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is meeting top Iranian leaders on Friday on his second trip to the Islamic republic in almost two years, the offical IRAN news agency reported.

Talabani, a Kurd, will hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and others.

Other media reports said Talabani is also expected to meet Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Iraqi leader arrived in Iran on Thursday on his way home from a trip to South Korea. He is accompanied by a high-level delegation from the ministries of foreign affairs, trade and electricity.

He previously visited Iran in June 2007.

Ahmadinejad travelled to Iraq in March 2008 in the first ever visit by an Iranian president to the former arch-foe, symbolizing the flourishing ties between Tehran and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The two Shiite-majority countries fought a war between 1980 and 1988 in which around one million people died.

Relations have warmed considerably since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime in Iraq by US-led forces.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Tehran in January to seek Iran’s help in rebuilding the country and the two neighbours agreed to establish a high-ranking joint committee to improve cooperation.


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2009-03-10 USER


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ICSC UBS Store Sales YoY (Mar 10)

Survey n/a
Actual -0.9%
Prior -0.8%
Revised n/a

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ICSC UBS Store Sales WoW (Mar 10)

Survey n/a
Actual 0.2%
Prior -0.6%
Revised n/a

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Redbook Store Sales Weekly YoY (Mar 10)

Survey n/a
Actual -1.4%
Prior -1.9%
Revised n/a

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Redbook Store Sales MoM (Mar 10)

Survey n/a
Actual -0.2%
Prior 0.8%
Revised n/a

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ICSC UBS Redbook Comparison TABLE (Mar 10)

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Wholesale Inventories MoM (Jan)

Survey -1.0%
Actual -0.7%
Prior -1.4%
Revised -1.5%

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Wholesale Inventories YoY (Jan)

Survey n/a
Actual 1.0%
Prior 3.4%
Revised n/a

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Wholesale Inventories ALLX 1 (Jan)

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Wholesale Inventories ALLX 2 (Jan)

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IBD TIPP Economic Optimism (Mar)

Survey 43.0
Actual 45.3
Prior 44.6
Revised n/a


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