After 3 so-called liquidity injections, The Federal Reserve said Friday it will pump enough money into the credit crunch to keep financial markets functioning normally. What does this mean? And is there a chance that Ben Bernanke may take the more extreme step of cutting interest rates?
CNBC Senior Economics Correspondent Steve Liesman joins the guys for this conversation. Here are excerpts from what was said.
Liesman feels there’s a lot of misinformation swirling on The Street about what happened and he wants to clear it up. He says:
- The Fed has very strict criteria for the securities it accepts to provide loans and liquidity to the banking system. Friday’s liquidity injections all involve triple A paper.
- The Fed does this often – it didn’t just happen Friday.
- The Fed is attempting to get banks “unfrozen.” In other words, banks don't trust other banks right now, and The Fed is trying to get them to do business with one another.
Liesman also says pointing fingers and laying blame doesn’t do any good. Liesman compares the credit crunch to a burning house. “It doesn’t matter who set the fire,” he says, “just get everyone out of the house and worry about who set the fire, later.”
______________________________________________________
Got something to say? Send us an e-mail at fastmoney-web@cnbc.com and your comment might be posted on the Rapid Recap! Prefer to keep it between us? You can still send questions and comments to fastmoney@cnbc.com.
Trader disclosure: On Aug 10 2007, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders: Macke Owns (INTC), Najarian Owns (GS), CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) Options; Seymour Owns (AAPL), (BX), (GLD), (SBUX), (X), (BBD) Seymour Owns Bank VTB OAO
