Congress's Afterthought, Wall Street's Trillion Dollars
• Washington PostOn the day before Thanksgiving in 1991, the US Senate voted to vastly expand the emergency powers of the Federal Reserve. [kinda like creating it] Almost no one noticed. The critical language was contained in a single, inscrutable sentence, and the only public explanation was offered during a final debate that began with a reminder that senators had airplanes to catch. Yet, in removing a long-standing prohibition on loans that supported financial speculation, the provision effectively allowed the Fed for the first time to lend money to Wall Street during a crisis.
