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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (77757)	4/16/2008 7:56:59 AM
From: Moominoid	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Fraser is denying here that he wasn't independent as you said: rba.gov.au "But he would say that wouldn't he"? I was basing my comments off an article I read recently that discussed a biography of Keating. It seems widely accepted in the financial media here that Reserve Bank independence increased during Keating's premiership and was formalized by the incoming Liberal government in 1996. I moved to Australia first in late 1996, so that was the impression I had. Everyone agrees that the Fraser-Howard government was a disaster on inflation etc. and that Hawke-Keating was a period of great reform. The Howard-Costello government has a more mixed record. Howard thought the voters were tired of change under Hawke-Keating and then in the end ran out of ideas anyway. Labor also repudiated Hawke and Keating and veered left till they realized more recently they had to get back towards the centre to be elected again.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (77757)	4/16/2008 11:23:39 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Fed Accepts Dodgy Collateral in Race to Bottom: Caroline Baum One year ago, Treasury securities accounted for 92 percent of the Fed's assets. Now it's down to 65 percent. bloomberg.com Short Memory Both the idea of accepting collateralized debt obligations and the timing of such an action strike many observers as bizarre. "We just went through a period of bundling lousy mortgage loans into pools and on the theory that few would fail, and labeled the package AAA," said blogger Mish Shedlock, an investment adviser at Sitka Pacific Capital Management, in a post on the latest Fed Swap-O-Rama. ``That experiment didn't go so well. "Now we see CLOs being created for the express purpose of swapping to the Fed," he wrote. "There is no market for the underlying loans. Yet Moody's, Fitch and S&P are supposed to rate this garbage investment grade so it can be swapped with the Fed." Borrowing at the PDCF averaged $32.6 billion last week, according to the Fed. Federal Reserve Bank of New York spokesman Calvin Mitchell said the Fed "will not disclose or comment on the use of this facility by individual institutions."