On Sunday morning, March 12, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CBS there would be no bailouts. Later in the day the Fed declared quantitative easing to infinity and beyond.
What’s going on?
Quite simply, the Fed is willing to overpay for debt (again). They call it the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), and as far as one can tell, its dollar value is limitless. The term sheet reads:
Program: To provide liquidity to U.S. depository institutions, each Federal Reserve Bank would make advances to eligible borrowers, taking as collateral certain types of securities.
And who is eligible?
Any U.S. federally insured depository institution (including a bank, savings association, or credit union) or US branch or agency of a foreign bank…
Basically everyone (i.e., not you