For the first time in its 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has confirmed in its newest weekly account that it is holding more than $2 trillion in United States Treasury securities, specifically $2,001,093,000,000. This is up from last week’s federal debt figure of $1,993,375,000,000.
Since the beginning of 2009, the amount of debt that the central bank carries has grown substantially. On the last day of 2008, the number was less than $500 billion in Treasury securities, but due to President Obama’s stimulus efforts and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing, the figure has quadrupled.
It was noted, though, that only 16.7 percent of the nation’s debt is held by the Federal Reserve. The remaining sum is held by foreign governments, central banks and companies, including Japan, which is owed $1.84 trillion, and China, which is also owed the considerable sum of $1.2758 trillion.
In addition, the Fed announced its results of a study that identified any incidences that could cause another economic collapse akin to the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008.
“A key lesson from the recent financial crisis is that many financial companies simply failed to adequately identify the potential exposures and risks stemming from their firm-wide activities,” the Fed stated. “But more importantly, many companies failed to consider the full scale and scope of exposures, and to analyze how the size and risk characteristics of their exposures and business activities might evolve as economic and market conditions changed.”
This latest news comes as it was reported in an economic research paper that the real national debt number is $70 trillion and not the supposed official $17 trillion. The figure was enhanced because it includes numerous liabilities, such as Medicare and Social Security. Another study released earlier this year suggested that the U.S. national debt is $222 trillion.
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