More Money From Heaven

And that’s not all the Fed’s been up to this week. On Tuesday, the Fed doled out another $75 billion in short-term loans to banks. In these Term Auction Facilities (TAFs), the Fed’s lent over $510 billion since the TAF was introduced, in December 2007. Also, the discount window, an extra-cheap source of overnight loans for commercial banks, pumped out an average of $13.5 billion a day this week. Lest we forget, in the post-Bear Stearns world, investment houses can now visit “the window” too… such firms borrowed an average $14 billion a day this week.