Federal Reserve officials were caught by surprise by financial crisis
Federal Reserve officials in August 2007 saw the beginnings of the crisis in subprime mortgages and concluded that the U.S. economy would be able to withstand it, even as some Fed members warned that it could trigger a downturn, transcripts from their 2007 meetings show.
“Well-capitalized banks and opportunistic investors will come in and fill the gap, restoring credit flows to nonfinancial businesses and to the vast majority of households that can service their debts,” Donald Kohn, then vice chairman of the board, said in Aug. 2007 according to transcripts of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings released today in Washington.
The transcripts show the committee’s slow grasp of the enormity of contagion that was to spread throughout global markets as a result of billions of dollars in low-quality housing assets that had been securitized into bonds and sold to banks and investors worldwide. Several FOMC participants such as then-San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen sounded alarms in the first half of 2007. Still, the FOMC focused on the economy’s performance and showed reluctance to alter policy until August.
“The odds are that the market will stabilize,” Bernanke told the committee in Aug. 2007, according to the transcripts from that year. “This restrictive effect could come in various magnitudes. It could be moderate, or it could be more severe, and we are just going to have to monitor how it adjusts over time.”
The transcripts mention the word “recession” four times in January, three times in June, once in August, and 27 times in December.
More: Fed Slow to Grasp Crisis in 2007 as Yellen Sounded Alarm - Bloomberg