So it has come to pass. In his recent press conference, Chairman Jerome Powell has at last made official the Fed’s plan to stick to its post-crisis “floor” system of monetary control, which uses changes in the interest rate paid on banks’ excess reserve balances, rather than routine open-market operations, to keep the federal funds rate at its assigned target. Powell has also affirmed previous reports that the Fed may stop shrinking its balance sheet well before it reaches $3 trillion — the (itself still hefty) minimum it might reach if the Fed kept to its original unwind plan. The unwind might even end before the Fed’s assets fall below $4 trillion, or not far from where they are today.
Although he’s generally not one for making forecasts, yours truly has long anticipated both developments, in writings here on Alt‑M and elsewhere. He has said as well that the Fed is likely to start Quantitatively Easing again at the first hint of another crisis. I’ll add here the prediction that it will do so before, or instead of, setting its IOER rate back to zero, just as happened during the last crisis. In short, I repeat my belief that it’s quite possible that Jerome Powell will have the dubious honor of becoming the Fed’s first “Six Trillion Dollar Chairman.” And because, under a floor system, the size of the Fed’s balance sheet has no direct bearing on the level of short-term interest rates, there’s practically no limit to how big it might get without interfering with the Fed’s ability to hit its interest-rate targets.
Fed officials insist, of course, that the advantages of this brave new regime outweigh any dangers it poses, and that they’ve only decided to stick to it after carefully weighing its pros and cons. Perhaps. But I have my doubts.