Really FED up..

Looks like the Fed is moving faster on its buying binge.

From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve bought $7.5 billion of Treasuries in the first outright purchase of U.S. government debt by the central bank to keep consumer borrowing costs low since the 1960s.Thirteen of the 19 securities maturing from February 2016 to February 2019 listed for possible acquisition were bought, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a statement today. It is the first step in a six-month program to buy up to $300 billion in Treasuries.The Fed joins central banks in the U.K. and Japan in extraordinary purchases of government debt, broadening efforts to unfreeze credit and end the recessionafter cutting the benchmark interest rate close to zero. Policy makers announced the decision to buy the debt last week along with a plan to more than double purchases of housing debt to $1.45 trillion, hoping to reduce rateson home loans.“This is the beginning of a program that should start to help to keep five- to 10-year Treasury yields lower than otherwise and at least partially pass through into private borrowing rates,” said Brian Sack, vice president at Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in Washington and a former Fed economist. “The question is whether the purchases will be enough to outweigh the large amounts of supply in the pipeline.”


China’s call for the creation of a new international reserve currency may signal its concern at the dollar’s weakness and ambitions for a leadership role at next week’s Group of 20 summit, economists said.Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuanthis week urged the International Monetary Fund to expand the use of so-called Special Drawing Rights and move toward a “super-sovereign reserve currency.” The dollar weakened after the Federal Reserve said that it would buy Treasuries and the U.S. government outlined plans to buy illiquid bank assets.
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Czech Leader: U.S. Recovery Plan Is 'Way To Hell': In the tell-us-what-you-really-think department, Czech Republic Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek called the U.S. recovery plan "a way to hell," CNN is reporting.Topolanek may have reason to be bitter: his government collapsed yesterday after an embarrassing vote of no-confidence. The Czech Republic currently holds the rotating office of the presidency of theEuropean Union, but Topolanek's comments significantly break ranks with the rest of Europe.Topolanek said the Obama administration is following the same mistakes made by FDR that lengthened and worsened the Great Depression -- a view held by some U.S. free-marketers and political conservatives.The Czech p.m. said he is "quite alarmed" at Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's toxic asset plan."He talks about a large stimulus campaign by Americans," Topolanek said. "All of these steps, their combination and their permanency, is a way to hell."