Völlig verdrehte Welt:
Die Fed versucht seit einiger Zeit, den beständig zunehmenden Ausleihungen am Diskontfenster jedes beunruhigende Stigma zu nehmen und die ganze Sache so darzustellen, als wollten einige fröhliche Jungs nach der Schule Süssigkeiten kaufen. Die "Jungs" sind jene drei US-Banken mit den allergrössten Derivatpositionen (J.P Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup ).
Die recht unverblümte Hauptaussage der Kampagne gipfelt nun darin, dass es gar ein "Zeichen von Stärke" sei, wenn man sich am Diskontfenster der Fed nach Belieben bedienen kann. Dürfen schliesslich nicht alle, nur die schon grossen Jungs.
Neben den Diskontkrediten hat man noch eine feine Kreditlinie über Auktionen an die Geschäftsbanken in der Höhe von $ 150 Mdr präpariert.
Zynischer geht´s eigentlich nimmer. Inzwischen brechen die Ausleihungen der Fed an die Primary Dealers und den Rest der Bande alle Rekorde. Das Bettler-Stigma der permanent wiederholten Injektionen soll verschwinden - ganz offensichtlich auch der Unterschied zwischen den Interessen privater Banken und jenen der steuerzahlenden Dummies - einträchtig im Schuldendienst sollen sie eisern zusammengeschweisst werden:
Fed Direct Loans Lose Stigma as Banks Push Borrowing to Record
By Scott Lanman
Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Commercial banks that a year ago rebuffed a Federal Reserve program to provide cheaper cash may be increasingly dependent on it.
Borrowing from the Fed's discount window hit record levels in six of the past eight weeks, and reached $23.5 billion as of Sept. 10, Fed data show. By comparison, lending averaged just $779 million a week in the three months after New York Fed President Timothy Geithner urged banks to use the program.
The increasing use of the funds risks delaying banks' disposal of nonperforming assets and capital raising. It also may make it tough to restore the rate on the loans to the historical 1 percentage point premium over overnight funds, analysts said. The Fed has lowered the rate nine times since August 2007.
Geithner, along with Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, told a group of banks including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. on an Aug. 17 conference call that tapping the so-called discount window was a ``sign of strength.''
They were combating what officials called a ``stigma'' -- that borrowing from the Fed was an indication of serious weaknesses. Policy makers later expressed frustration about the discount window as a tool for injecting funds into the financial system, and rolled out alternative programs.
``The problem is, you can never go off the methadone,'' said Jim Bianco, president of Chicago-based Bianco Research LLC, referring to a drug used to wean addicts off of heroin.
Along with the discount-window lending, the Fed also provides $150 billion of funds to commercial banks through cash auctions, where it receives collateral including mortgage-backed debt. For investment banks, the Fed has a $200 billion program for lending Treasuries, also in exchange for a variety of collateral.
grüsse
auratico