Tuesday 10/14 ... Bernanke Talks Now (shorthand notes)

• Federal reserve has actively used all it's powers and authorities to help the economy through these unprecedented events. We'll continue to do so, but clearly the time had come for a more concerted effort.
• History shows that government intervention usually comes too late. This IS NOT the situation we face today.
• We've acted at a time, though institutions are stressed, where a majority of institutions are still able to fulfill their obligations.
• We like the global nature of the response.
• Root of problem = loss of confidence by investors and public
• Federal reserve is pressing forward with it's commercial paper backstop facility
• Americans can be confident that every resource is being brought to bear
• "Strongly believe that the application of these tools will help restore confidence to our financial system and place our economy on a path to healthy and vigorous growth."

FDIC's Bair followed:

• prepared to do whatever it takes
• expanded insurance will boost confidence in banking system
• we'd be on an uneven playing field with the rest of the world if we didn't act as we did today.
• liquidity problem due to uncertainty about mortgage assets.
• today's actions should give banks self-assurance to resume normal lending (sounds good to us)
• restore rationality to credit spreads (sounds good too!)
• senior issues fully backed by FDIC. expires end of June 2009
• UNLIMITED insurance coverage of non-interest bearing accounts. this is mostly payroll type accounts. (still, a huge measure)
• does not rely on taxpayer funding. paid for by direct user fees
• coverage for both parts of the program will be automatic for the first 30 days. institutions can opt-out as it will cost them slightly to participate after the first 30 days