The Federal Reserve system is doing its part to cut the budget deficit. The central bank earned $81 billion in fiscal 2010, of which a bit more than $78 billion will be remitted to the Treasury. That’s $31 billion more than last year.
According to the Fed’s news release yesterday, the following items drove profits:
$76.2 billion in income on securities acquired through open market operations (federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) mortgage-backed securities, U.S. Treasury securities, and GSE debt securities) [In short, the Fed is making money on its "quantitative easing" / "credit easing" activities. At least for now.];
$7.1 billion in net income from consolidated limited liability companies (LLCs), which were created in response to the financial crisis [Profits on the Maiden Lane partnerships, etc.];
$2.1 billion in interest income from credit extended to American International Group, Inc.;
$1.3 billion of dividends on preferred interests in AIA Aurora LLC and ALICO Holdings LLC [also related to AIG]; and
$0.8 billion in interest income on loans extended under the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) and loans to depository institutions.
Additional earnings were derived primarily from revenue of $0.6 billion from the provision of priced services to depository institutions.
Those $88 billion in gross earnings were slightly offset by the following expenses:
$2.7 billion [of interest expense] on depository institutions’ reserve balances and term deposits;
[$4.3 billion] of operating expenses of the Reserve Banks, including $1.0 billion for Board expenditures and the cost of new currency.
The resulting $81 billion in net profits were then distributed as follows: $78.4 billion to the Treasury, $1.6 billion as dividends to member banks, and $0.6 billion retained to “equate surplus with paid-in capital.”
No comments:
Post a Comment