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Fed: Tools That Change the Money

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FED: Tools That Change the Money Supply
Maggie Ensor
Principles of Macroeconomics: ECO 203
Melvin Landry
December 10, 2012

In this writing, I intend to inform you of the three tools used by the FED, to manipulate the direction of the economy. Further, I will explain how the FED can use these tools to influence, and better yet, get the economy out of a recession.
First, to explain this properly, I need to define to you, Monetary Policy. Monetary policy refers to what the FED does to influence the amount of money and credit in the U.S. economy. What occurs with money and credit affects interest rates, and affects how the U.S economy performs. [2] www.federalreserveducation.org
The goals of monetary policy are to promote maximum employment and stable prices; in doing so, supporting conditions for long-term economic growth and long-term maximum employment. [2]
Alright, now that you understand monetary policy, I can explain to you, the three tools of monetary policy that the FED uses to manipulate the money supply in the U.S. economy.
The first tool we will discuss is, “open-market operations.” Open-market operations are made up of the buying and selling of government securities from large banks and security dealers, thereby increasing the money supply in the hands of the public. [3] http://www.investopedia.com In an open-market, the FED doesn’t determine, by itself, which securities it will do business with. The choice comes from the open-market in which various securities dealers, that the FED does business with, compete on the basis of price. Open-market operations are flexible and the most often used tool out of the three tools of monetary policy [2] The FED uses open-market operations to influence the supply of bank reserves. If the FED wants to increase reserves, it buys securities and pays for them by making a deposit to an FED maintained

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