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Opinion
Mark Gongloff

The Fed Is Trapped in the Twilight Zone

“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination.”

Rod Serling, host and narrator of The Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling, host and narrator of The Twilight Zone.

Photographer: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images

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The U.S. Federal Reserve is one of those rare, lucky entities that can occasionally solve problems just by shooting money at them. Too bad its biggest problems resist such treatment.

The central bank today doused a fire that had been raging in the overnight repo market, simply by pumping $75 billion at it today, $75 billion yesterday and $53 billion the day before that, with a promise of more money tomorrow. Must be nice! Financial markets mostly returned to normal functioning, though there could be small flare-ups easily handled by the administration of more buckets of money. That’s all good news for the economy.