> The Doomsday Book is intended to help lawyers of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York aid their clients in crisis management. It was originally distributed to a limited set of lawyers and select senior staff members. This has changed with time, as more lawyers are drawn into crisis management. Now, all FRBNY lawyers receive a copy of the Doomsday Book. Since the Doomsday Book seemed more confusing than helpful to non-lawyers, it is no longer distributed outside of the Legal Function. However, some individuals may have older versions on their shelves, and there is nothing wrong with sharing this version with clients.
Page 44 of the PDF has a good overview of what this document is intended to be.
Putting "Doomsday book" in the context of crisis management explains why this document exists. Basically, they don't want to be in the middle of a crisis and have legal uncertainties delay their ability to take action.
Interesting how the replies are assuming "doomsday" means some sort of apocalyptic societal collapse instead of acknowledging it could be a figure of speech used amongst lawyers at the FRBNY to refer to a crisis where time is of the essence..
This PDF is not the book. It is an introduction/summary of changes and a table of contents (TOC). The sample agreements are not included. The letter makes clear that FRBNY is actually not subject to the FOIA. I wonder if they charged for the service.
The presence of these agreements referred to in the TOC suggests that after a "doomsday" event, the FRBNY lawyers expect that other legal entities will still be entering into agreements. One HN comment muses about the lack of a functioning judiciary after this "doomsday". But without one how would such agreements be enforced. What would be the point of providing sample agreements if a doomsday event means agreements can no longer be enforced because the mechanism for enforcing them no longer exists.
> Putting "Doomsday book" in the context of crisis management explains why this document exists.
Really? They could hardly have picked a worse name; the Doomsday Book is, very famously, a register of who owns what. It has absolutely nothing to do with emergency response or crisis management.
But the document that the name implies it should be, a register of who owns what, is not at all an unlikely thing for the Federal Reserve Bank to have.
You're thinking of the Domesday Book.
It is admittedly the same word written in Middle English, but I think context+spelling is enough to distinguish it.
Som of us haue reuised oure spelynge syns þe 1100s.
It is still currently spelled "Domesday book". Go ahead and try and find it via your incorrect spelling and post the link to us.
Or maybe you're referring to the modern novels which are titled "Doomsday book"?
For the record, when you misspell it as you insist on doing, the top hit is the correct spelling with a link to the correct version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book. Actually pretty much every top hit is the correct spelling, which should give you the idea your misspelling is just that, a misspelling.
Here's the Grammarist entry on the difference: https://grammarist.com/usage/doomsday-vs-domesday/
That should make it clear to you.
Instead of doubling down on your ignorance you could choose to learn when presented new knowledge.
It seems to be a misnomer as I can’t imagine any ‘doomsday’ scenario where there would still be a functioning judiciary, Justice department, or any functioning clients for the FRBNY to help.
I think the fear is not that there is no justice to help them.
The point is that when exceptional measures are needed, you want to know how far you can go, without it coming back to you in the months afterwards.
It's a bit like InfoSec cyber incident playbooks: if customer data is being corrupted, can the production server be shut down? how bad does it need to be before the downtime no longer outweighs the corruption? who can take the decision?
If you don't spell that out in advance, you may find yourself in a situation where you lose time unnecessarily.
Like the Internet Archive feeling that "oh shit the entire society just shut down" in the days after Covid lockdowns started, and uncapping their digital lending because they were the only "library" you could still visit.
And then getting sued six ways from sunday over it, years later when the crisis mood had faded and the help-people-any-way-we-can vibes were thoroughly forgotten. Time to make sure no good deed goes unpunished!
Yeah. This document makes a LOT of sense.
WBUR just aired an interview today with Brewster Kahle. It would be a very sad day if the Internet Archive stopped resolving, or was stopped from benefiting the common good.
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/01/07/internet-archive-way...
In any tricky situation the conditions under which you're judged are a world apart from the conditions under which you operate. Just don't be on the "losing" side.
The self-own that was the IA taking it upon themselves to decide that copyright would not be enforced upon them by big rightsholders “because COVID” is not a good deed.
It is foolishness masquerading as virtue. I used to be a donor, but no more, as this was an unforced error. The IA is in danger because the IA management was dumb.
I don’t believe in copyright, personally, and I’ve been an avid pirate of every type of media since I got on the internet at 9.6kbps, but to think that Big Content won’t sue whenever and however they can is simply naïve.
> The self-own that was the IA taking it upon themselves to decide that copyright would not be enforced upon them by big rightsholders “because COVID” is not a good deed.
The theory was that the courts would find it to be fair use. Which isn't a crazy theory at all because making exceptions for exceptional circumstances is exactly the sort of things courts do, and fair use is exactly the sort of thing that gives them the latitude to do it if they want to.
IA's issue is that they're librarians and look at things like librarians do. If people lose access to books, is that an emergency? It could sometimes be a matter of life and death -- people need some information or something bad will happen and now they don't have access to it -- but that's kind of abstract and it's not as visceral. People understand kicking down a door to prevent someone from electrocuting themselves better than they understand that the same thing can happen if people lose access to the information needed to prevent it. So to a librarian, of course that's an emergency.
And then the other side of that is, what are you balancing it against? Some temporary copies being made of books that libraries all over have already paid for and have in their collections, and only for the duration of the pandemic? That's not a ridiculous trade off, that's completely reasonable. The libraries bought the books and the patrons read them, same as it ever was. In a temporary emergency, how much does it matter that the accounting is completely perfect rather than the plausible approximation you get based on assuming that before they knew there would be a pandemic, libraries had purchased books in proportion to how much demand there would be for them? Has it even been proved that a single book was simultaneously lent out more times by IA than there were copies of it on the shelves in locked down libraries everywhere?
That's not a crazy argument. The problem is, it doesn't feel like an emergency anymore. Worse, there was a lot of overreach during COVID, and many people are now of the sense that much of the response was excessive. And then you get a conflation between "shutting down every library might have been an overreaction" and "given that libraries were forcibly shut down, lending books in a different way was temporarily justifiable" and the people making the second argument get painted with the negative sentiment derived from the first by Monday morning quarterbacks.
> theory was that the courts would find it to be fair use. Which isn't a crazy theory at all
If they'd been advancing a test case, they would have done what they did and then--when confronted by rightsholders--stopped while the courts deliberated. That asks the question while managing the downside. Instead, IA dialled its rhetoric to eleven, thereby turning what could have been a measured legal contest into a bet-the-farm Hail Mary.
> If they'd been advancing a test case, they would have done what they did and then--when confronted by rightsholders--stopped while the courts deliberated.
Consider what would happen if they did that.
First, this was happening during a pandemic. Emergency happening right now. If you stop doing it at this point, not only do you fail your patrons when they need you, you're undermining your own argument that this is actually an emergency that justifies doing this.
Second, if you stop, do they even sue you? If they don't, you don't even get your test case.
Third, if they do sue you, what does it matter if you were doing it for a month vs. a year? If they hit you with the absurd fictional damages numbers in some of the copyright statutes and you lose, bankrupt is bankrupt.
> not only do you fail your patrons when they need you, you're undermining your own argument that this is actually an emergency
Did the emergency argument ever hold legal water? How many actual librarians did the IA consult in crafting its programme?
> if you stop, do they even sue you
Injunction. Or at least, let smarter legal minds weigh in. (And actual librarians.)
> what does it matter if you were doing it for a month vs. a year?
Damages. It also shows goodwill, which could have influenced not only judges by IA's allies (who largely abandoned it).
IA was arrogant throughout the lawsuit, and it showed in their library partners often publicly rebuking them.
> Did the emergency argument ever hold legal water?
It's whatever the courts say it is. Fair use is very squishy. Nobody knows until there is a case.
> How many actual librarians did the IA consult in crafting its programme?
They are actual librarians.
> Injunction.
If you voluntarily stop they don't need to file for an injunction, they can just drop the case and then there is nothing for you to appeal.
> Damages.
What's the difference between a billion dollars and a trillion dollars when you don't have a billion dollars?
> Going straight from controlled digital lending to free for all was totally unnecessary when the first hadn't been tested.
They'd been doing controlled digital lending for a good while and nobody sued them. To get a test case somebody has to file a lawsuit. Maybe it shouldn't work that way but "courts don't issue advisory opinions" isn't something IA made up.
> IA was arrogant throughout the lawsuit, and it showed in their library partners often publicly rebuking them.
Issuing a statement that amounts to "please don't sue us" isn't really indicative of much other than that they know they'd need to budget for a bunch of lawyers if they want to get involved and they don't.
Yeah, it was a "we want to and think we can get away with it" type of thing. It's what they would love to be doing 24/7, COVID was just a convenient excuse.
(Publishers can be parasites, but if you're playing with the big boys you have to follow the rules)
More Doomsday as "potentially existential (in a financial system sense) crisis" than a literal Doomsday. It fits perfectly into that frame as a compilation of other times the Fed has explored the limits of it's powers to address extreme situations in the financial system.
It's also unlikely courts etc would completely disappear even far into an actual "Doomsday" crisis. Hell the IRS has plans in place on how to collect taxes post nuclear apocalypse.
There’s levels of Doomsdays. As emotional as people get over surface level details of government, there’s a long way down from a civilization unable to make CPU’s before the literal stone age.
So sure people hate the IRS, but codified tax collection is the single most important function of modern government. Without that you don’t have private property or free markets just warlords arbitrarily seizing property which destroys whatever is left of society very quickly.
That's kind of what I'm getting at with the first part of my post. Doomsday for the Fed is "major collapse of sector(s) the US economy they fail to arrest" or esoteric economic woe that requires drastic but relatively novel (legally speaking) measures to address. The kind of systemic seizing that some of the people who had the foresight and money to have made a killing on 2008 but didn't because they feared the wholesale collapse would happen because they didn't factor in the firehose of money that would be directed at the problem.
Complete societal collapse is outside their purview because they depend on there to be an economy to manage which ceases to meaningfully exist at certain points on the Doomsday scale.
Maybe with my limited knowledge I am wrong about this, but it seems like "codified tax collection" as it relates to private property and free markets, at least in the US, is that they designed it to create the illusion of a functioning system. In reality it serves special interests because they can afford to navigate it's complexities, while the general population is held hostage to this system. Secondly, income tax money doesn't appear to actually go to the places it should, like infrastructure, and instead towards unjust wars that are waged to democratize(hold-hostage) countries that don't play along with capitalism.
I think the tax system, in its current state, is an illusion of providing a just system when what it really does is turns a country of free people into wage slaves working for overlords (people with money).
When you think in terms of absolutes you lose precision. We aren’t living in a pure anarchy and therefore the system is providing some quantifiable value.
Instead what’s going on is the system is failing to live up to your ideals, but Democracy isn’t based on any one persons idealistic vision. Instead it’s a compromise between many fundamentally incompatible ideals, as are all institutions it creates. Government is quite literally working as intended, because it’s the result of intentional actions by individuals. You may disagree with a law, regulation, court case, etc but remember someone wrote it.
Death AND Taxes
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/business/nuclear-war-plan...
> It will take something more than a nuclear attack to wipe out taxpayers' obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.
> An addition to the Internal Revenue Manual, which is supposed to guide the conduct of all I.R.S. employees, declares that if the bomb is dropped, ''operations will be concentrated on collecting the taxes which will produce the greater revenue yield.''
One thing that I think I've learned, to my surprise, even for most people in uniform on either side, is that much of life during wartime is still mostly "business as usual."
I think we all tend to have poorly calibrated mental models of this because coverage of war tends to focus on the heaviest action and worst of the devastation.
I don't mean to downplay how awful that can be, or how far the effects can reverberate (even generations later), but like... the vast majority of people still go about their daily lives, doing their usual jobs, doing the mundane things, even having fun, supply chains and infrastructure and institutions seem to be quite resilient, etc. Locally and individually, everything can change in an instant in combat (even then, most people walk away from that and continue their lives), but nationally things can keep rolling along as war drags on much more slowly than we all might expect or hope.
So I have little doubt that the IRS would keep doing its thing, and tax returns would need to be filed (albeit maybe with extended deadlines), even in the wake of a nuclear attack. I suppose the question is how much do things unravel in a scenario of nuclear counter-attack, and counter-counter-attack, etc. for which we have no historical precedent to think about.
The most important function of a government in wartime is revenue collection.
When you consider how the US funded 20+ years of warfare post-911, it’s both fascinating and terrifying, especially when you consider the long term effects of “financial meth” in terms of asset bubble, excluding the American aristocracy from taxes, and structural deficits.
It depends on how well the country is winning. E.g. Ukraine is still quite functional. Palestine is approaching a complete collapse.
If you are talking about Gaza, there were reports a few days ago that Israel is considering cutting back on the amount of aid allowed in once Trump is in office, claiming that Hamas is still able to fund itself by "taxing" aid.
Think "2008 crisis" rather than actual apocalypse.
> Page 44 of the PDF has a good overview of what this document is intended to be.
Yes, but unfortunately it doesn't much explain what the contents are like. Would be great to get an laymen-readable summary of this from an LLM.
I certainly would have thought this 'book' could encompass the Great Depression (1929 and on). It is the most defined 'doomsday' we should all learn from and act upon. I bet it is hard for anyone to learn from a distant past. Then I understood it was very law centric and that nothing was made to prevent a blackout, but mainly to escape any legal process that could interfere with any crisis management.
But my main focus was on the use of the Comic Sans font on page 1.
Comic Sans was definitely my first reaction too.
From the name, I expected a list of the fed’s assets similar to the more famous Domesday Book. But this is more interesting.
Wild to me that they can choose which FOIA’s to answer. Anybody had one denied?
They're not "the goobermint", so not FOIAble.
Congress literally exempted "information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions" from FOIA [1].
Which is crazy as a quasi government agency supervised by a government agency.
Basically by having an independent Central Bank, a country's people surrender their democratic power to determine monetary policy in favor of a cabal of bankers. The idea that the FED or any other "Central Bank" is an independent arbiter of money stuff in an angelical cloud is one of the most naive illusions they ever sold people.
The only thing an independent central bank is independent from, is from the democratic will.
Yeah, it's weird. More separation of powers stuff. The intent is to be insulated from politics but not entirely divorced from the will of the people. As Calvin said, a good compromise leaves everyone mad.
The people have no will at the Fed
The Fed chair is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It's arm's length, to be sure, but I don't think most people would want too much more direct involvement.
The people, generally, have no understanding of monetary policy either in theory or practice. It's a good thing the Fed isn't at the beck and call of the people.
So, we surrender monetary policy to the bankers and just pray they don't do stuff on their benefit while fucking us?
That's exactly how we got here, in the precipice of a financial crisis that everyone is pretending not to see so we can keep the ponzi scheme running a bit more.
The people have no understanding of a lot of other stuff. That's why we use a REPRESENTATIVE democracy system, not a direct one. Is it perfect? not.
Not really. It’s similar to a public authority. Owned and governed by the federal government, but somewhat insulated from the day to day.
It makes sense. Just as you don’t want the state sweeping bridge tolls into the governments general fund, you don’t want the whims of the executive futzing with money.
Good lord what is up with that PDF? Half of it seems to be (badly) OCRd, some pages look like a TIFF with 50dpi or lower resolution... that's not what I'd expect to get returned in a FOIA request.
having read and understood this doc seems like the bar for having an opinion about the role of the Fed and whether it should be "ended," "audited," or nationalized, given these crisis responses are a list of the essential functions for whatever might replace it.
"Please note that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the “New York Fed”) is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) although it complies with the spirit of FOIA when responding to requests of this type."
Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not accountable to government laws, and by extension is not accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
It's accountable to Congress:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm
> The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act to serve as the nation's central bank. The Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., is an agency of the federal government and reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress.
> Some observers mistakenly consider the Federal Reserve to be a private entity because the Reserve Banks are organized similarly to private corporations. For instance, each of the 12 Reserve Banks operates within its own particular geographic area, or District, of the United States, and each is separately incorporated and has its own board of directors. Commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold stock in their District's Reserve Bank. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. In fact, the Reserve Banks are required by law to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury, after providing for all necessary expenses of the Reserve Banks, legally required dividend payments, and maintaining a limited balance in a surplus fund.
>In fact, the Reserve Banks are required by law to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury, after providing for all necessary expenses of the Reserve Banks, legally required dividend payments, and maintaining a limited balance in a surplus fund.
Going purely off memory here, I recall audits implying this may not actually be happening as legally required. It was back when Ron Paul was making a big deal about it though, I can't remember the specifics so I'm bringing it up to invite discussion.
> I recall audits implying this may not actually be happening as legally required
There is zero evidence the Fed hasn't been paying the Treasury properly and a lot of audit evidence it has been.
Fed hasn’t paid Treasury a dime since August 2022:
The Fed is cutting its balance sheet and thus losing money [1]. (When the Fed wants to lower rates it buys bonds, thus raising their price. That creates accounting profits. When it wants to prop rates up it sells bonds; that depresses their price leading to accounting losses.)
The Fed isn’t pocketing change owed to the Treasury. It hasn’t properly owed anything on account of having shrunk its balance sheet by trillions of dollars [2].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/fed-says-official-net-neg...
Thats because it lost money. It paid all its profit to the treasury, which was less than zero as raising rates causes it to loose its income
If it's paying dividends, then it has de facto owners. Also, are there explicit constraints on "limited" balances -- eg fraction of money supply or fraction of GDP?
> If it's paying dividends, then it has de facto owners
No, it means the FRBs have legal shareholders. (The Fed per se doesn't pay dividends.) The Treasury pays interest, that doesn't mean it's owned by bondholders.
We could easily re-write statute so the Fed doesn't pay dividends (it would become interest on reserves), they're an anachronism from the days when the Fed had to compete to induce membership. But that wouldn't do anything practical and it also wouldn't satisfy the conspiracy theorists, so it's not really in anyone's interest to bother with.
> are there explicit constraints on "limited" balances
No, though it's maintained at an amount equal to banks' paid-in capital [1]. Broadly speaking, it's another anachronism.
just because a contract pays dividends doesn't make the bearers the owners
and this entire discussion about "government vs private" just completely neglects the widely used concept of orphaned entities, as if they don't exist
false dilemma
Congress doesn't seem to be very accountable to the people, so the chain seems to stop there.
11 incumbents lost their seats in 2024... that's accountability.
That's not accountability, it's populism
Americans continue to get exactly what they vote for, and have for at least 150 years. If Americans don't understand that, they should read a book and learn.
Americans didn’t vote equally for the Senate
The Fed is subject to FOIA [1]. (Within limits [2].) FRB New York is not.
If you want to know about monetary policy, that’s FOIA’able. If you want to FOIA the FRB’s trades so you can front run them, that’s not allowed. (Similarly, you can FOIA the Department of Education. You can’t FOIA Sally Mae.)
> If you want to FOIA the FRB’s trades so you can front run them, that’s not allowed.
As if anything that operates at the speed of FOIA would be useful for front running. Maybe if it was for some future action, but even that would be months out of date when you finally get a response.
> As if anything that operates at the speed of FOIA would be useful for front running
What are you basing this on? There was a scandal several years ago when the order of transactions protocol leaked. If you now that X transaction systematically happens after Y, and you see X, you know Y is coming.
All agencies have process for handling FOIA requests for issues that are often of a more serious nature than some data possibly arriving fresh enough for front running..
Congress literally exempted "information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions" from FOIA [1].
So the other 8 types of exemptions must exempt virtually every agency with a meaningful role, but wait, no, they don't. Agencies are expected to judge every request against these exemptions.
> Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not accountable to government laws, and by extension is not accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
While I appreciate your desire for more accountability in our financial system, I feel this framing can be interpreted as needlessly alarmist. Although the NY Fed is not subject to FOIA —- because, as written, it excludes them —- they are of course subject to US law in general. Congress (and, by extension, the people) may pass laws to regulate them as they wish.
Are they privately held or part of the state apparatus though?
> Are they privately held or part of the state apparatus though?
The Fed is part of the state. Unambiguously.
FRB New York is its interface with the private sector, analogous to Fannie Mae or the Tennessee Valley Authority.
I think the Federal Reserve Banks are essentially government agencies.
I know US courts have ruled that they are "private corporations". However, that's really a technical legal definition of "private" vs "government" under US law.
In a broader, globally applicable sense of "government"-versus-"private": they were created by Congress, they have special legal powers granted to them by Congress. Although they have private "shareholders" – nationally chartered banks are required by law to join one of the Federal Reserve Banks, and state chartered banks are permitted to if they desire and meet certain conditions – these private shareholders don't have the kind of power that shareholders have in a genuine private corporation. Although they get to vote for seats on the board, they don't get to set strategic direction or make major decisions, those are dictated to them from above. A body created by the government which you are legally required to join isn't really "private" just because it gives you some rather limited say in its running.
It is actually a bit like "corporatism" in fascist Italy – in which the government created "corporations" (a bit like trade associations) for each industry, which the employers in that industry legally had to join, and in which they could vote for its governing board, but in practice the government called the shots – except just for banks.
When I search Google with your question "NY Fed privately held or part of the state apparatus", the first answer is from the NY Fed explaining this: https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/more-about-what-we-do
The third result is from the St Louis Fed, a non-technical explanation of this https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-english/who-owns-the-fed....
404 on your St. Louis link.
Thank you, it is missing a trailing "s", it was a bad copy/paste on my part. The corrected link is https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-english/who-owns-the-fed.... Still really easy for anyone to find the information if they were inclined.
Yes.
Congress can pass laws to regulate Elon Musk, too, but it doesn't stop anyone from being alarmed about fake news.
that same independence is the reason it's not subject to the political whims of whoever is in power at a given time, which is important for the long term health of the economy. "The people" did decide this - as congress gave the fed that independence
I don't know enough about the subject to assign "blame", however I assume it would be the Fed's obligation to blame the political whims of Congress for the massive inflation of national debt, wouldn't it? The Fed only creates money in response to Congress, correct?
The independence could still have stipulations that require FOIA.
Sounds good until you discover that its the people who own the fed that are really in power.
Everyone should read at least the first few chapters of "The Creature from Jekyll Island" to understand how much money (power) they have.
> until you discover that its the people who own the fed that are really in power
This is nonsense. The President and Congress control the Fed. And nobody can knowledgeably claim, today, that its banking members (legally, its shareholders) are more powerful than America’s non-bank financial institutions (e.g. Blackrock or Brookfield).
The greatest boon our billionaire class could inherit is a politically-controlled Fed. It’s why one of any autocrat’s first moves is bringing the central bank under their control.
It's not nonsense. The banking system printed every dollar out of thin air and is charging interest on every single one (giving a cut to government). For decades and decades.
I made a post earlier detailing the mechanism they use to extract the wealth from us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42621878
You can't just append "out of thin air" to standard monetary policy and pretend you're making some kind of argument. Everything you describe in the comment you linked to is sophomore level economics. I don't understand your point. There is nothing sketchy about it. Do you want us back on the gold standard? That's an awful idea.
>> The banking system printed every dollar out of thin air
what is the alternative exactly? money created by god?
like no duh the economy & money system was created out of thin air. we created all this shit out of thin air.
> The banking system printed every dollar out of thin air[...]
What banking system doesn't do this?
Ones with steps in between don't count.
Plenty of banking systems use currency with names other than dollars.
Brazil's banking system prints reals out of thin air. But that's better, because they're real, says so in the name :)
> banking system printed every dollar out of thin air and is charging interest on every single one (giving a cut to government)
This is also nonsense, though less so.
Money is created by private banks through lending. The government gets a cut, but that comes through taxation. Money creation is complicated, but it seems like every year someone watches a YouTube video about inflation and deduces, with zero further thought, that it must be a conspiracy.
> Money is created by private banks through lending.
Exactly. Every single dollar was created from thin air, as a "loan".
> it seems like every year someone watches a YouTube video about inflation and deduces, with zero further thought, that it must be a conspiracy.
I've been studying and researching this for years.
> Every single dollar was created from thin air, as a "loan"
Not quite. Minted currency isn’t created from a loan. Neither is fiscal spending.
On the other side of the spectrum, money is destroyed through taxation (by the state) and repayment of debts and defaults (privately).
The monetary hypothesis of income inequality is overly simplistic. It supposes our tax, trade and funding policies are all dictated by monetary policy, which is obviously nonsense. (That or our tax, trade and social spending policies have no effect on inequality. Which is obviously stupid.)
It is an easily-digested hypothesis. We like those, particularly when the alternative is reading lots of arcane monetary financial texts.
Fiscal spending is still created as a loan though since the government has to sell bonds to finance it, no?
> Fiscal spending is still created as a loan though since the government has to sell bonds to finance it, no
Monetarily speaking, the government creates the money when it spends it. The loan then (and optionally) removes a similar amount of money from the system.
This is an enormous power, so we try to legally limit the government in how it can do this. (If we removed the Fed's independence and put it under the Treasury, the Treasury could just add numbers to the bank accounts of the government's employees and vendors. This is analogous to its minting power. We separate the Treasury and the Fed in part to fracture this power.)
I forgot one more creation/destruction mechanism above: the Fed's open-market operations. When the Fed buys assets, it creates money. When it sells them, it destroys money.
Thanks for the clarification, if you have any pointers to learn more about this I'd be interested to check it out.
Oldie but a goodie: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...
I'm curious which country you reside in where congress does the will of the people because I'm in the US and that's definitely not true here.
EDIT: Getting a lot of hate on this comment so allow me to clarify what I meant.
In the US we have a Constitutional Republic meaning elected representatives write the laws. People are not voting directly on laws and issues (on a federal level). The parent comment said that "The People decided this" but that's not an accurate statement. Congress decided this regardless of what people actually wanted. In fact, the public was largely divided on whether they wanted a Federal reserve during this time.
You greatly overestimate the quality of the will of the people. Just because you don't like certain outcomes because they are stupid doesn't mean that those outcomes aren't what people wanted. Democratic institutions are a much more accurate way of reflecting the will of the people than most other attempts to measure that, for many reasons including the existence of people who don't respond to surveys but vote.
Democratic institutions can be subverted with first past the post voting systems and the illusion of choice amongst the most vocal and well funded parties
It's also a recipe for a tyranny of the majority and a horrible form of government.
You know what the technical term for a subverted democracy is? "Democracy."
Also known as, "Five people with an IQ of 90 outvoting four people with an IQ of 110," or "One person in Iowa canceling two votes in California."
Eh, the (growing) insanity of the electoral college is not a necessary feature of a democracy.
It is as far as this one's concerned.
No, not necessary, just (currently) Constitutionally mandated. Those are not the same thing.
Your options for getting rid of it are Congressional ratification with an overwhelming majority (LOL), a Constitutional convention (a horror too frightening to contemplate, given the people who would be involved), or guns. Which do you prefer?
I'm not suggesting getting rid of it, stop with the hysterics. I'm saying it's not a necessary feature of a democracy, as you suggested in your original post.
It is a highly idiosyncratic design decision in one democracy. It is not at all functionally necessary to America's system, and it's certainly not necessary to any other, as proven by its conspicuous absence from said democratic systems.
Five stupid people outvoting four dumb people is a natural outcome in every democratic system. One person outvoting two based on geographic location is not a natural outcome in every democratic system.
It's not that hard to understand if you take off your ideology blinkers for a moment and read the words in front of you.
It's not that hard to understand if you take off your ideology blinkers for a moment and read the words in front of you.
If you have a point to make, make it.
> the electoral college is not a necessary feature of a democracy.
You offered two traits of "democracy"
1. 5 low IQ voters outvote 4 high IQ votes
2. 1 voter in geography X can outvote 2 voters in geography Y
Trait 1 is a necessary feature of a democracy.
Trait 2 is not a necessary feature of a democracy.
You placing the two together in a list to describe "Democracy" is a category error.
Trait 2 is an idiosyncratic design feature of exactly one democracy, and it is not necessary to either this democracy in particular or to democracies in general.
> Democratic institutions are a much more accurate way of reflecting the will of the people
You're right but that's not what we have in the US. We have a Constitutional Republic. Elected representatives write the laws. People are not voting directly on laws and issues (on a federal level). I'm not saying we should change it but for the parent comment to say that "The People decided this" is not an accurate statement.
That's all I meant with my comment.
This is just false
> Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think
> Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all.
https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
There are several articles about the study
Another interpretation: when you sum a bunch of opinions you end up with a result that doesn’t look particularly like any of the inputs, and certainly not a large portion of them.
I think you're over-representing just how well opinion surveys can represent the actual will of the people.
To put this in a less politicized analogy, everyone will tell you they want to be rich, but how many people are willing to make sacrifices to become rich? It turns out many rich people today are rich because they didn't have to make very many sacrifices, while most everyone, including minimum wage employees, can become a millionaire. Mathematically it's not all that complex.
People will tell you what they want with some internalized model that isn't representative of the realistic trade-offs that would have to be made. So in effect what people say isn't based in the reality of what they actually want.
Do you realize this study uses completely subjective post-hoc assessment of what industry lobby's wanted?
This is the wrong take. The system reflects the will of the people who the system deems important. The average person wants higher wages, shorter hours and cheaper cost of living w/r/t rent, food, fuel and health. Congress is reflecting none of those desires right now because they serves the needs of the oligarchic selectorate that has been funding unrestricted class warfare against regular people for the last 20 years.
> average person wants higher wages, shorter hours and cheaper cost of living w/r/t rent, food, fuel and health. Congress is reflecting none of those desires
The average voter does not uniformly express these preferences.
Duh? Like, by definition, an average doesn't reflect uniform expression. The people who don't want those things are a minority, but they are getting their way, because the system reflects the desires of the elites, not the desires of the average.
> people who don't want that are a minority, but they are getting their way
They’re the majority. Almost every voter puts pocketbook issues near the top of their list, but not so far up that they’re willing to be civically active about it unless it’s a crisis. Herego, we spend most of our non-crisis time on non-pocketbook issues.
No, they aren't the majority. The elites that the system actually serves have successfully ignited a culture war that splits the average people on which issues are driving the economic problems. The overwhelming majority of Americans want higher wages and cheaper cost of living, they just can't agree on how to get there (by design).
Divide et impera.
> overwhelming majority of Americans want higher wages and cheaper cost of living, they just can't agree on how to get there (by design)
By design? Or because it's hard? You really think the sole thing keeping us from having more for less is conspiracy?
Not conspiracy - culture wars. Conspiracy is a part of that, but racial equality, immigration and abortion have all been wielded to great effect. It's certainly easier to create disruption than consensus, but the money is clearly backing disruption.
> racial equality, immigration and abortion have all been wielded to great effect
There is plenty of evidence happiness is, in part, relative. I’m not convinced there aren’t voters who would rather be a little poorer than better off but not as much as that other group.
> easier to create disruption than consensus, but the money is clearly backing disruption
I’m moderately wealthy. Split time between New York and Wyoming. It’s certainly wild that a bunch of voters in rural Pennsylvania feel strongly about lowering my taxes so long as it pisses off some liberals. If I had more resources and were more self centred, I could see myself encouraging that.
Almost every voter puts pocketbook issues near the top of their list, but not so far up that they’re willing to be civically active about it unless it’s a crisis.
We're not in a crisis now, but people voted in the last national election as if we were, because Fox News told them that we were.
> because Fox News told them that we were
This is my problem with the “elites in control” hypothesis. It seems to rely on voters’ power existing, but being circumvented because said voters are too stupid to handle it.
> This is my problem with the “elites in control” hypothesis. It seems to rely on voters’ power existing, but being circumvented because said voters are too stupid to handle it.
You are correct (except that it need only be a subset of voters).
Now that you've done a good job of elaborating on the hypothesis, what exactly is your problem with it?
> what exactly is your problem with it?
It doesn't work. Its testable predictions preclude a good amount of extant politics, including practically all populism. Elites the world over are losing in democracies because they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what their constituents wanted. Voters' interests are complex, and they can't be so easily bought.
That is a huuugely presumptive interpretation.
Here’s another possible interpretation: our information environment makes people extremely vulnerable to actual bullshit in massive volume.
> Here’s another possible interpretation: our information environment makes people extremely vulnerable to actual bullshit in massive volume
That is also true. People get angry and then misdirect it. But the anger is real, and it filters up through the political system when the valves aren't clogged. They aren't, not anywhere in the West. Voters across the West have essentially begun a wholesale replacement of their stable of elites. That is not what happens in an oligarchic system.
> That is not what happens in an oligarchic system.
The person USAns just voted in is literally an oligarch, as is his co-president, and he has indicated that he will populate his cabinet and advisory board with still more oligarchs. His "inauguration" slush fund has already received hundreds of millions of dollars from other oligarchs to secure their place in the new oligarchy*
*: Pure or otherwise
> person USAns just voted in is literally an oligarch, as is his co-president, and he has indicated that he will populate his cabinet with still more oligarchs
America is tending towards an oligarchic system. (This is a history of weak democracies, historically, and a reason we were founded as a republic and not pure democracy.) That doesn't prove it currently is one. Trump's election is largely about replacing the technocratic and cultural elite with a commercial one.
> America is tending towards an oligarchic system. (This is a history of weak democracies, historically, and a reason we were founded as a republic and not pure democracy.) That doesn't prove it currently is one
Maybe that doesn't. But this study does:
> Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.
> One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence
Source: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
The study is from 2004. I'd say things have gotten a lot more "oligarchic" in the last 20 years, and seems like it might get even worse in the next few years
That is absolutely how oligarchic systems supplant democracies.
Hitler was elected, Orban was elected, Bukele was elected.
And Putin and the first supreme leader of North Korea. Democracies can turn into dictatorships quickly. But don't worry - it can't happen here.
> Hitler was elected, Orban was elected, Bukele was elected
None of them emerged from oligarchic political systems.
If your argument is "the US was not a pure oligarchy 4, 8, or 12 years ago", sure.
I don't think that's what people are pointing out.
> Its testable predictions preclude a good amount of extant politics, including practically all populism.
How so?
> Elites the world over are losing in democracies because they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what their constituents wanted
Elites the world over are winning in democracies (take the US for example), which could feed into the hypothesis. Indeed, nonzero voters of these elites were easily bought.
Elites the world over are losing in democracies because they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what their constituents wanted.
... or perhaps because you've misidentified the "elites."
Voters' interests are complex, and they can't be so easily bought.
No need to buy cattle you already own. You just herd them.
> perhaps because you've misidentified the "elites."
If the elites are constantly changing then the 'elites' being in power is about as threatening as the 'people' holding it.
If the elites are constantly changing
Honestly I don't think there's a rivalry among equals in play. I think the previous "elites" slacked off on the job. What's happening now looks less like a transfer of power than a vacuum being filled.
Regardless, it is the height of absurdity to argue that the "elites" aren't in charge now. A New York billionaire teamed up with the world's wealthiest man and the country's most influential cable news network to buy the Presidency, and the rest are now lining up to pay tribute.
The other "elites," to the extent there are any, are short on ambition, short on cash, and short on media reach.
> the previous "elites" slacked off on the job. What's happening now looks less like a transfer of power than a vacuum being filled
True. But this is how all depositions go. When that process is blocked is when the process stops being peaceful.
> it is the height of absurdity to argue that the "elites" aren't in charge now
Some elites are always going to be in charge. That's almost tautology. The point is there is no the elites who were in charge and are now.
> other "elites," to the extent there are any, are short on ambition, short on cash, and short on media reach
And/or. Plenty have some of those but not all, or at too stupid to know how to wield it. Point remains: we have an amorphous elite with contrasting interests who are constantly fighting because power is fractured among them.
Well, that's pretty much the size of it, isn't it?
I'd say the average voter actively wants at least 1 of these and has no problem with the others.
If members of Congress are not acting in the interests of their constituents, their constituents have the power to vote them out. The decision not to is what's known as "the consent of the governed". Perhaps that's not exactly the same as "the will of the people" but it's close enough for casual usage.
Vote them out and elect who?
Some other member from one of the two parties, who will continue to make decisions mostly for their rich donors?
> Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.
> One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.
> Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law
Re-run that within voting jurisdictions. What that study largely seems to reference is that local representation is, in part, a divide and conquer mechanism.
in 2024 recently rejected numerous alternative voting systems that would have allowed third party candidates to have a fighting chance
What's your best example of something the US Congress has done, or failed to do, that was contrary to the will of the people?
I wonder if you consider the national debt? In a sense, the national debt continues to rise because of faith in the USA, which is similar to say "faith that debts will be repaid."
It won't be repaid by me, nor anybody in my generation (Millenial). So the world is kinda collectively assuming subsequent generations will repay. To your point, it's neither contrary-to nor aligned-with the will of the people, but seems like a massive point that people would say "i'm not responsible for"
Here are a few examples of times congress passed laws/acts which went against the will of the people:
The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) The Prohibition Act (1919) The Vietnam War Draft (1960s) The Troubled Asset Relief Program (2008)
OK, the only modern example on your list is TARP. I think the strength of your examples does not justify the strength of your statement.
Actually, I just read your update, you've changed from making a bold (and, in my view, wrong) statement about how government is not responsive to the will of the people, to a fairly boring technical point about how a representative democracy works. I have no idea if you're just doing a motte and bailey or if you were never trying to make a bold claim in the first place...
I'll just leave my piece here, in any case: I believe that the US system of government actually works really well, and in general we tend to get laws and regulations that are based on the broad consensus of a very diverse electorate. This is a good thing. In my opinion, when most people complain about how the government doesn't work for the people, what they actually don't like is that a lot of the country disagrees with them, and that disagreement is reflected in our government.
But, maybe I'm wrong and there's some other system we can come up with that will keep a vast and diverse nation hanging together prosperously for another 250 years. Shrug.
Some more modern examples:
Gun Control Legislation (e.g., Background Checks, 2013)
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, polls showed overwhelming public support (over 80%) for universal background checks. Congress failed to pass significant gun control measures despite this broad consensus.
Net Neutrality Repeal (2017)
Public opinion polls showed strong bipartisan support for net neutrality regulations. Despite this, Congress and the FCC rolled back these protections, prioritizing telecom industry interests.
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Repeal Attempts (2017)
Repeated attempts by Congress to repeal the ACA (Obamacare) were made despite consistent public support for key provisions like protections for pre-existing conditions.
Stock Trading by Members of Congress
Polls show overwhelming public support (around 70-75%) for banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks due to conflict-of-interest concerns. Yet, no significant legislation has passed to address this issue.
Gun control - fair point, this is one where I think an ambitious legislator could really make a name for themselves by pushing for it. I suspect that there would be more pushback from the electorate than is indicated in the polling, but who knows. This is your best point, I'll be really interested to see how public opinion actually breaks if concrete legislation is introduced.
Net Neutrality - maybe? My read on it is that it's just too wonky of any issue for most people to actually care that much about, and polling can't really tell us much about how the electorate would lean if they actually studied it - phrasing of the survey question can probably skew things strongly one way or the other. But, maybe that's just a cop-out.
ACA - doesn't this strengthen my argument? It's popular enough that even when the Republicans had a trifecta they still couldn't repeal it, despite running on "repeal and replace"... Maybe if they had actually had a replacement ready to go, they actually would have succeeded... but they couldn't reach consensus on a replacement, so it didn't happen.
Stock trading by members of Congress - the jury is still out on this one... when did this push start, during Biden's term? If (1) public opinion stays strongly in favor of it during Trump's current term but (2) we still don't see any legislation during the next presidential term... then I would call this a mark in your favor, but not until then.
Overall, I'm still not buying your argument that our government is unresponsive to the will of the people. It's certainly not a perfect reflection of the electorate, but generally when we build consensus, we get things done... it's just that consensus is really hard to come by these days.
Have a good one my friend, thank you for engaging, I think this stuff is really important. :)
Difficult to say what the will of the people was on TARP as it changed week to week depending on what the stock market had done that day.
But three days later they were for it before they were against it:
https://www.astrid-online.it/static/upload/protected/GALL/GA...
On the draft, that wasn't a new law. Selective Service was probably a 1940s law. A majority didn't think the war was a bad idea until 1968 and a majority supported Nixon pretty much to the end regardless of the reimagining that hippies were ever a majority.
https://time.com/archive/6875220/a-time-louis-harris-poll-th...
The Gaza genocide?
What policy proposal related to the Israel-Palestine conflict do you think would actually be agreed to by more than 50% of the US electorate?
No point answering this because dang would remove it.
It's not accountable to government laws which target the government. Congress could pass a law to make such entities (or indeed, all corporations or people) subject to the act, but they've decided not to.
The fed of course is accountable to laws passed by the government but not laws about the government (since it is not a part of the government).
It is a wonderful thing that it is independent from the government, and history has shown, across nations, that political independence of central banks is necessary to control the money supply well. Political leaders are more interested in short-term issues and have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to responsibly manage money supply issues.
Aren't these positions nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate? That is still a government of the people through representation. If you had people confirm each and every position in the federal government the system would collapse.
Much like Facebook and Twitter spy on American citizens for the Federal government.
The Judicial branch of the American government is exempt from FOIA. Isn't it great we have a hold 1/3 of our government that thinks they are exempt from us plebes oversight? They don't even hold themselves to the 'although it complies with the spirit of FOIA'. That seems way more concerning than the FED.
This isn't the whole story (from a serial FOIA person myself). The judicial branch is generally excluded from FOIA laws (it shouldn't be), but it is subject to disclosure under the First Amendment and the common law. While that doesn't provide any statutory wins (e.g. must disclose in X days etc), it does allow you to sue if say a court doesn't provide you with records you want.
see e.g. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc. (1978): recognizing the common law right of access to judicial records but allowed the court to deny access when interests such as privacy, national security, or fair trial rights outweigh the public's interest.
I have never seen a successful jailhouse lawyers suit to get FOIA type information from the Judicial system. They are instantly blanket denied under 'FOIA doesn't apply' in order to delay, with the underpinning jailhouse suit timing out before the information request to the Judicial system gets anywhere.
Yes, it is great. The US economy has been the strongest in the world for a century and the USD is a global currency. The system has been incredibly successful, in spite of being periodically run by idiots.
>Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not accountable to government laws, and by extension is not accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
We have two massive private entities in control of the entire government: our two political parties.
It's ok. It has made a half-hearted promise to appear to behave according to the spirit of the law, when doing so provides good public relations and otherwise suits its needs.
This seems like some pedestrian financial agreements.
What is the TLDR on why it is called 'Doomsday'?
> The so-called Doomsday Book, an internal document used to guide the Federal Reserve’s actions during emergencies, has long been the subject of intrigue and suspicion. Largely a compilation of legal opinions, the book has been a key resource for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for decades, allowing it to play a unique and oversize role during financial crises. No other regional Federal Reserve bank has such a resource.
> The book is a living document that records pivotal decisions made during times of financial distress. It played a crucial role in then New York Fed President Timothy Geithner’s decision to rescue Bear Stearns from bankruptcy in 2008.
Economic system failure runbook.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sun-shines-on-new-york-fed-doom... | https://archive.today/YbgG7
https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-new-york-federal-reserves-do...
Its explained on the first page italicized
The “Doomsday Book” is a compendium of legal opinions, in some cases stretching back decades, that explore the legal limits of the Federal Reserve in the event of a financial crisis.
Every company has a disaster recovery plan. Seems like calling it 'Doomsday', is the question. It seems rather dramatic naming for a bank.
I think the imminent collapse of the US economy is aptly named "Doomsday" to the Federal Reserve.
I mean, you bring up a disaster recovery plan for companies, but is it REALLY a "disaster"?
For the company and its employees, the answer may well be "yes."
Page 2, comic sans
Someone should be held accountable for this.
Nevermind the redacted stuff. I want to know who to blame.
Blame for using comic sans ? :)
Blame the interns!
This was my first reaction. Why? Trying to downplay the seriousness of the topic or something? Is it ever used in documents like this?
I read it more as "here's a page I wrote and printed-out on my nephew's computer during the holidays" unserious rather "I'm joking serious". It's not a page in book of collected opinions Fed official keep, it's the cover page for the public release. Like, "this old thing? It's kind of out-of-date and unimportant but you can take a look if you want".
IE, there's a little effort to hide the significance of the document "in plain sight" here.
I initially thought this was trolling due to the MS Comic Sans right up front.
Is that Comic Sans on the second page?
I guess if you’re at the precipice of a financial crisis, starting with laughs around the table isn’t the worst.
Came here to say the same thing. It’s a chilling font choice for a document like this.
It also reads hilariously like a document from the SCP wiki, blacked out passages and all.
I bet they use Comic Sans for nuclear launch codes too.
2006 was peak "Great Moderation," where there hadn't been any serious financial crises since the 80s. The consensus wisdom was that many of the policies of the 80s & 90s, particularly around inflation and reducing uncertainty, had made financial crises almost obsolete.
It seems dark today given that we know the outcome, but I'm sure at the time, Comic Sans seemed appropriate for a set of tools that they thought likely would never be used. Or maybe it indicates a certain hubris undone within about 18 months.
Wasn't 2006 just off the heels of the dot com bubble?
Stares in Long Term Capital Management
probably anyone this far in the thread remenbers long term capital managment, I did, but couldnt remenber if it was in the 80's or 90's. (1998)
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Did you get anything useful out of that summary that wasn’t on the first page?
I did actually. I glanced through the first 10 and last 10 or so pages before I even thought of asking NotebookLM for a summary. I thought it might be appreciated by someone who wanted a slightly better summary.
That's great but please don't post LLM summary output into HN threads
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
I wish this rule didn't exist. This was the only useful post to me in this whole thread and I missed it because of this nerd sniping.
Well, more carbon emissions for me.
Oh shit I missed that, haven't been very active lately, will edit out. Thanks.
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Fascinating to see how the Fed prepares for potential systemic financial crises with this 'Doomsday Book'. The name cleverly references the medieval Domesday Book, adapting that record-keeping concept to modern financial emergency preparedness.
It's essentially a sophisticated crisis management playbook, similar to tech companies' incident response plans but with much higher stakes. The legal and operational complexity revealed here is truly mind-blowing
The fact that one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world maintains a "Doomsday Book" of emergency legal procedures, named after the historic record of English lands commissioned by William the Conqueror, suggests they take very seriously the possibility of catastrophic financial crises requiring extraordinary measures. The document states explicitly that "The Doomsday Book is not, and can never be a finished product" - implying an ongoing need to prepare for new types of financial emergencies.
This seems both novel and somewhat concerning, as it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system. The very existence and continuous updating of such a manual provides a window into how the Fed thinks about and prepares for potential crises.
> it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system
Yes! That's the point! You don't want to arrive at a worst-case scenario unprepared!
The US military has all sorts of files and plans on bizarre and implausible scenarios, mostly as intellectual exercises ("if we wanted to invade Canada, how would we do it?"). That doesn't imply anything about their likelihood.
nowadays it feels like plans "how to invade Canada" no longer feel so hilarious :(
> somewhat concerning, as it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system
It’s concerning a regulator and lender of last resort considers what happens at the precipice of last resorts?
I think some concern is warranted, given financial crisis are real threats the the system and consumer.
The consumer can do little to prevent such a crisis, but awareness and modest preparation are a rational response.
I think it is pretty analogous to fema preparations for catastrophies. A homeowner can't stop a pandemics or hurricane. They can have an emergency kit.
Markets are both cyclical and ever-changing, so I don't see what's surprising about new types of emergencies coming up as the times change. The way we slice and dice assets and claims today is very different from how it used to be done just a few decades ago. The markets are a living breathing thing.
Would you prefer that they would not prepare for unusual circumstances? This is what any serious organization does when there are real stakes. Smart people sit down and gather information, think about likely scenarios, and write a playbook, updated over time. Seems like your response is a knee jerk entirely based on the optics of the name.
The fed responding wrongly to a crisis, even a minor one, could cause enormous pain and suffering -- think famine. I don't have the expertise or patience to actually evaluate the contents of the document, but they are definitely doing the right kind of thing here.
Supposedly, the term "Doomsday Book" (or Domesday at the time) was coined because the records were unalterable once written. The book itself brought a day of doom.
But this book is a "Doomsday Book" because it's a book written to prepare for a day of doom. I'm not sure we can draw a strong connection between the names.