The Treasury Department has decided to move a significant amount of funds from the Federal Reserve to other locations throughout the duration of the financial crisis. This move allows the Federal Reserve to freely loan funds to the market without having to impact the federal funds rate, which has important significance to banks and other lenders.
 
Right now, Treasury holds $200 billion in a Supplementary Financing Account with the Fed, but it plans to cut that amount to $15 billion over time. Analysts think that this move comes as part of the Treasury’s attempt to avoid hitting the federal debt ceiling, …read more

What if the federal government simply asked for all the cash back? It could work.
 I hope you enjoy this video from The Onion.

Here are some interesting money reads you may have missed this week:

The Association For Financial Professionals reported on the details of the Treasury Department’s plans for regulatory reform.
Philip Slater’s rant against individualism on Huffington Post made me wonder how much of our current financial crisis is due to an ‘overestimation of abilities’ on Wall Street. And is this any easier to swallow that outright fraud?
CFO.com had an interesting piece on how some of Staple’s green policies are improving the bottom line – even in especially in bad times.
Anil Rao took on big business bloggers’ assessment of MBAsat Intercalm. I especially …read more

On Sunday, The White House announced three nominees for senior posts at the Treasury Department. Just days ago, two other contenders withdrew their names claiming concern that the team wasn’t being assembled quickly enough during the financial crisis.
Two months into the Obama presidency, only Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in place in the Treasury.
The three new nominees are:

David Cohen – assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing
Alan Krueger – assistant secretary for economic policy
Kim Wallace – assistant secretary for legislative affairs

“Out of crisis arises opportunity,” President Obama said in a statement.
“With the leadership of these accomplished individuals and our whole …read more

The U.S. Treasury Department is in the midst of asking — some would say demanding — that mortgage lenders adopt a new set of uniform, but voluntary, rules that would make it easier for them to modify mortgage loans that homeowners can no longer afford.