Complexities of the U.S. Financial System
The U.S. financial markets play a big role in the economy. If no one is investing in businesses, they cannot start up, or grow larger to meet the needs of the country or nation. The economy is directly impacted by the amount of stocks bought and sold each day. Before the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929, it was booming. Americans had invested so much money in France that when their economy rose, so did the U.S. It collapsed because Americans pulled their money out of France and put it in U.S. stocks. If everyone pulled their investments today, the same thing would happen. Businesses would fail, and the U.S. would go into more debt.
The central bank of the United States is the Federal Reserve System controls the financial system, and is the most powerful single actor in the U.S. economy. The head of the central banking system of the U.S. is called the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The chairman is appointed by the president of the United States and serves a four-year term with confirmation from the Senate, currently serving is Ben Bernanke. The Federal Reserve System has a total of seven board members including the Chairman. With the exception of the Chairman members serve a staggered fourteen-year term. The Federal Reserve Board of Governors is responsible for the monetary policy and serves as a dependent political structure. Although it is a dependent political structure and operates on its own, disagreements between the administration and board are very common. Pressure from Congress and/or the President can and have influenced the decision of the board but its semi-independence prevails, generally. The Federal Reserve Board of Governors “operates through the Federal Open Market C...
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... and makes adjustments to keep it in line with the true market value. Operating in foreign markets under goes a checklist and monitoring the exchange rate of that market is a contributing factor.
The financial market of the United States impacts many levels of the economy, businesses, and individuals. As you can see it is like a pyramid businesses and individuals are affected by the economy and how it stands within the market.
References
Investopediacom 20110906 How Interest Rates Affect the U.S. MarketsInvestopedia.com (2011, September 6). How Interest Rates Affect the U.S. Markets. Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/how-interest-rates-affect-markets.asp
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The Federal Reserve System is the central banking authority of the United States. It acts as a fiscal agent for the United States government and is custodian of the reserve accounts of commercial banks, makes loans to commercial banks, and is authorized to issue Federal Reserve notes that constitute the entire supply of paper currency of the country. Created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, it is comprised of 12 Federal Reserve banks, the Federal Open Market Committee, and the Federal Advisory Council, and since 1976, a Consumer Advisory Council which includes several thousand member banks. The board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System determines the reserve requirements of the member banks within statutory limits, reviews and determines the discount rates established pursuant to the Federal Reserve Act to serve the public interest; it is governed by a board of nine directors, six of whom are elected by the member banks and three of whom are appointed by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve banks are located in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Saint Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Dallas.
The Federal Reserve was created by Congress on December 23, 1913. The current chairperson for the Federal Reserve is chairman Jerome Powell. The Federal Reserve was created to provide a federally insured system. All banks that are FDIC insured have to fall under the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve regulates the banks and creates a safer environment for their customers. The Federal Reserve affects the U.S. has been affecting the U.S. economy ever since it was established. It’s system promotes maximum employment and initiate stable prices for goods and services. It intends to also bring stability and balance to the financial system. The Federal Reserve also decides the federal interest, which has the power to dramatically affect the economy
Post the era of World War I, of all the countries it was only USA which was in win win situation. Both during and post war times, US economy has seen a boom in their income with massive trade between Europe and Germany. As a result, the 1920’s turned out to be a prosperous decade for Americans and this led to birth of mass investments in stock markets. With increased income after the war, a lot of investors purchased stocks on margins and with US Stock Exchange going manifold from 1921 to 1929, investors earned hefty returns during this time epriod which created a stock market bubble in USA. However, in order to stop increasing prices of Stock, the Federal Reserve raised the interest rate sof loanabel funds which depressed the interest sensitive spending in many industries and as a result a record fall in stocks of these companies were seen and ultimately the stock bubble was finally burst. The fall was so dramatic that stock prices were even below the margins which investors had deposited with their brokers. As a reuslt, not only investor but even the brokerage firms went insolvent. Withing 2 days of 15-16 th October, Dow Jones fell by 33% and the event was referred to Great Crash of 1929. Thus with investors going insolvent, a major shock was seen in American aggregate demand. Consumer Purchase of durable goods and business investment fell sharply after the stock market crash. As a result, businesses experienced stock piling of their inventories and real output fell rapidly in 1929 and throughout 1930 in United States.
The Federal Reserve System is the central bank which regulates and controls the monetary and banking system. Their primary focus is to regulate the health of the economy as a whole and implements monetary policy to help increase the money supply during a downturn, and restrict the money supply during periods of excessive growth. During periods when the economy faces high inflation, federal reserve will use contractionary monetary policy by decreasing money supply which in turn results in higher interest rates, lower investment spending, and lower consumer spending. In contrast, when the economy encounters a recession, federal reserve will utilize expansionary monetary policy by cutting interest rates or increasing the money supply to boost economic activity. During expansionary monetary policy, higher investment spending will raise income and higher consumer spending will help the economy. A tight (contractionary) monetary policy occurs when Federal reserve (central bank) raises the
389). Federal Reserve Banks has twelve regional districts throughout the United States, each banks with 9-member board of directors. Some of their responsibilities would include; distribution of currency, act as a central clearing system (clear checks), supervise banks, and department of Treasury functions. They are also responsible for setting and changing the discount rates and act as the commercial bank of the U.S.
The U.S. financial crisis of 2007–2008 is considered one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It almost made large financial institutions collapse and stock markets declined in a dramatic way around the world. The consumer wealth declined in trillions of U.S. dollars and played a significant part in the failure of key businesses and declines in economic activities. All these factors led to the 2007–2008 global recession and played a major role in contributing to the European sovereign-debt crisis.
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Parrino, R., Kidwell, D. S., & Bates, T. W. (2011). Fundamentals of Corporate Finance. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. (Original work published 2009)
...Governors is also the chairman of the FOMC. Its principal duty as described under law is the supervision of open market operations that principal method of federal monetary policy (Federal Reserve System 8th ed. pp. 12).
The economy affects all Americans. Because our government spends money frivolously, our economy is bad. In the last 45 out of 50 years, the government’s expenses have exceeded the revenue (“Federal”). When this happens, the U.S. Treasury borrows more funds and makes the national debt increase. The government does not plan on limiting spending in the future:
Other types of exchange rate risks are translation risk and so-called hidden risk. The translation risk relates to cases where large multinational companies have subsidiaries in other countries. On the financial statement of the whole group, the company may have to translate the assets and liabilities from foreign accounts into the group statement. The translation will involve foreign exchange exposure. The term hidden risk evolves around the fact that all companies are subject to exchange rate risks, even if they don’t do business with companies using other currencies. A company that is buying supplies from a local manufacturer might be affected of fluctuating foreign exchange rates if the local manufacturer is doing business with overseas companies. If a manufacturer goes out of business, or experience heavy losses, it will affect all the companies it does business with. The co...
As we are moving to the end of the course, we want to present you with the Federal Reserve System (Fed), which is the central bank of the USA. We are going to explore the roles of Fed in regularizing the economy, its function, and also the tools used in doing that. We will learn how central banks regulate the banking system and how they manage money supply in economies. We will also be presented to the financial crises lessons we can be able to understand the importance of the regulatory system; and then, we answering questions such as:
If financial markets are instable, it will lead to sharp contraction of economic activity. For example, in this most recent financial crisis, a deterioration in financial institutions’ balance sheets, along with asset price decline and interest rate hikes increased market uncertainty thus, worsening what is called ‘adverse selection and moral hazard’. This is a serious dilemma created before business transactions occur which information is misleading and promotes doing business with the ‘most undesirable’ clients by a financial institution. In turn, these ‘most undesirable’ clients later engage in undesirable behavior. All of this leads to a decline in economic activity, more adverse selection and moral hazards, a banking crisis and further declining in economic activity. Ultimately, the banking crisis came and unanticipated price level increases and even further declines in economic activity.
The foreign exchange market is one of important mechanism in the international business because foreign exchange is an intermediary for all nations in term of the growth of the economy. There are many functions of foreign exchange market in the global economy. In the international business, it uses the foreign exchange markets in four ways. First, the pay...