There's a lot of talk right now about what exactly the money view of banking is good for. Well, for one it can help us understand what just happened at First Republic Bank. 1/n Some of the biggest banks in the country -- putatively FR's private competitors -- just announced that they would deposit $30 bn with FR. The gov't coordinated the effort. What's that all about? Seems collusive! 2/n

The Fed's Powell says: don't worry about another financial crisis right now b/c "Between our swap lines and our repo facility with foreign central banks and our standing repo facility, we have institutionalized liquidity provision." What does he mean? A🧵
ft.com/content/9a8625… 2/ The key word is *liquidity.* It is code for: government backstopping of money issued by investor-owned financial firms.

"Institutionalized liquidity provision" is how the government *delegates* the power to issue money to the private sector.

Let me break this down further:

You might be wondering: Why hasn't the ruble fallen *further* following US EU UK sanctions against the Russian Central Bank? After all, don't these sanctions prevent currency stabilization by freezing Russia's $630 bn+ of reserves? 1/n Yes but: Russia still has positive fx flows and the Russian Central Bank has enlisted exporters to act as currency stabilization agents by requiring them to sell 80 % of their fx for rubles, meaning when they receive dollars they sell most of them from rubles 2/n

Some news: I've got a book coming out about the @federalreserve and its efforts over the past fifteen years to hold together our increasingly dysfunctional monetary system.

Pre-order a copy using the link below! On sale May 10! 1/6

globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-fed-… Part explainer, part critique, part proposal for reform, the book takes as its starting pt the following puzzle: from 1950-2008 the Fed's balance sheet was, by and large, a passive product of cash demand; now its an active tool of macroeconomic and fin mgmt. What happened? 2/6

(1/10) I've got a new paper out with @Jane_C_Manners on the President’s power to remove the heads of “independent” agencies: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… (2/10) Just seven words stand between the President and the heads of many of these agencies—inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance in office (INM).