United States (U.S.) economic outlook, growth/productivity, jobs, BoC decisions, interest rates, monetary policy.
On 9/21/2011 the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced it will: • Extend the average maturity of its existing holdings of Treasuries. • Swap $400 billion worth of shorter-term maturity Treasuries /government bonds with longer-term Treasuries by the end of June 2012. • Reinvest principal payments from agency mortgage-backed debt/securities back into...
On 11/3/2010 the US Federal Reserve announced it is committing $600 billion to buy more government treasuries/bonds in order to stimulate the weak US economy. This is the second massively large and unconventional program of quantitative easing (money printing). In the statement released by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) it said that although...
On 10/21/2010, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) stated that Fannie May & Freddie Mac’s additional capital needs are expected to be between $221 billion and $363 billion, through 2013. The potential draws under the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements (PSPAs) with the US Department of the Treasury to date have been $148 billion. The...
On 3/24/2010, UK’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour Party government used its last budget weeks before a national election, to raise taxes on the wealthy. It is a move to help offset breaks given to lower income earners. For example, the elimination of home purchase duties for first time home buyers, will be...
On Sunday 3/21/2010 a divided House of Representatives (the lower house of the U.S. Congress) in the US approved historic health care legislation, and also immediately moved to separately pass a series of key White House prescribed changes to it. The changes were a prearranged agreement, in order to guarantee the passage of the...
