Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

by Liaquat Ahamed

In the early summer, the Fed stopped easing. It proved to be a mistake. For just as it went on hold, the economy embarked on a second down leg, industrial production falling by almost 10 percent between June and October. There is some debate about Harrison’s reasons. Some argue that he thought he had done enough. Having staved off catastrophe by pumping a large amount of money into the system and cutting rates to an unprecedented low level, he believed that he had been as aggressive as he could. Others argue that he was operating with what might be called a faulty speedometer for gauging monetary policy. The usual indicators that he relied upon suggested that conditions were very easy—short-term rates were truly low and banks flush with excess cash. The problem was that some of these measures were now giving off the wrong signals. For example, when banks overflowed with surplus cash, this was generally an index, in a more stable and settled economic environment, the Fed had pushed more than enough reserves into the system to restart it. In 1930, however, in the wake of the crash, banks had begun carrying larger cash balances as a precaution against further disasters, and excess bank reserves were more a symptom of how gun-shy banks had become and less how easy the Fed had been.