, Columnist
Stop Worrying About the Fed’s Balance Sheet
It’s not the threat that people seem to think it is.
Nothing to see here.
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Financial types have long had a preoccupation: What will the Federal Reserve do with all the fixed income securities it purchased to help the U.S. economy recover from the last recession? The Fed’s efforts to shrink its holdings have been blamed for various ills, including December’s stock-market swoon. And any new nuance of policy — such as last week’s statement on “balance sheet normalization” — is seen as a really big deal.
I’m amazed and baffled by this. It gets much more attention than it deserves.