Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in an appearance (remotely) before the Brookings Institution

Don’t Overlook The Importance Of What The Federal Reserve Just Did. And Said.

“The burdens are falling most heavily on those least able to carry them”, says Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

That on a day when reports show another 6.6-million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, meaning more than 17-million people in this country have lost their jobs in the last month.

The U.S. central bank taking several additional crucial steps to shore up the economy, to the tune of $2.3-trillion dollars:

• It’s buying loans made by banks to small, big and medium-sized businesses. In a larger scale than it has thus far. And even for businesses that are too big to qualify for Small Business Administration relief.
• It’s providing relief to state and local governments, which in many places are close to running out of cash, by setting up a fund worth half a trillion dollars that they can tap into to keep their day-to-day operations going. Many small governments are stretched extremely thin right now, and because the economy has come screeching to a halt, they’ve lost revenue from things like sales tax, which often make up a good chunk of their finances.

But the Fed Chief also points out he only has “lending powers, not spending powers”, so the…