Reserves are what are used by banks when you transfer money from one bank to another, when Treasury tells you to give certain account money (social security, Gov payments in general) or when you withdraw cash (since cash is a Government liability, not bank liability).

The clearing balances (aka reserves) are held at the Fed, it’s Government’s liability. Banks can only clear debts between one another using a higher up liability (and that’s Gov).

Banks don’t need reserves, they need what is known as HQLA (High Quality Liquid Assets) which includes Treasuries. These can then be presented to the Fed or in the interbank market for reserves if needed.

But since they shoved so much reserves, maintaining interest rate by paying interest on reserves, these windows had been very quiet.

See https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=13078

Treasuries, particularly short term ones are considered near monies, they are highly liquid and the Fed accepts it as collateral (routine monetary policy). That’s how they manage the interest rate they set, called open market operations.

Why could this be happening right now? Maybe some bank needs reserves (clearing balances, used for settling accounts between banks), non bank institutions also have access to the window I think.

Post 2008, the Fed shoved billions of Dollars of clearing balances into the system think it’ll increase lending (it didn’t as lending isn’t reserve constrained but supply-demand constrained ie ppl must be willing to take loans), that’s what kept these windows so quiet for long, people called it money printing but whether that’s the case depends on what they accept as collateral. If they accept junk private debt then yes it’s “quasi fiscal”, if its Treasuries, then no.

The most sad part is the cheap dollar isn’t sustainable. Foreign currency reserves are finite and I believe much of Argentina’s sources for reserves is fragile ie built on foreign debt.

So it’ll break, imports will become unaffordable while local production goes away too. Reminds me of Sri Lanka in 2020-2022 except trade and capital flows are even more liberalized.

Asset swaps (reserves for Treasuries) of equivalent value which are reversed the following day (hence, temporary and overnight)

“The problem with libertarianism is that you eventually run out of Government money to pay your debts.”

Yep you can’t give it to Tether Inc unless you are an authorised participant, only after you sign a contract with tether.

Edit: one might say Etfs and mmfs are like that too. Except, with those you have a real legal claim on the underlying assets. See how Reserve Primary Fund was “resolved”.

Besides that, with etfs/mmfs hold a pool of equities and large denomination Treasuries and all and are marketed as such, not pure cash as USDT is supposed to be.

The neolibs support polling when it comes to hating trans ppl but not when it comes to hating Israel.

Or universal healthcare, or taxing the rich. They ignore polling on all of it.

Russian Expats in Phuket Want to Pay With Stablecoins

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-17/russian-expats-in-phuket-want-to-pay-with-stablecoins

I think the author is ridiculous for saying the solution is local CBDC when the only difference between CBDC and local bank transfers is just who’s liable (with CBDC it’s Central Bank, with bank transfers it’s commercial banks). The best way to deal with this would be to be setup a state enterprise (a public exchange window) which only accepts USDT (not provide) and dumps it abroad instead of domestically while giving local currency at market rate. This way it’s more centralized and can be monitored better.

Also, USDT has no primary liquidity, you can’t take it to Tether Inc to get actual Dollars in your Dollar bank account. They only allow big participants and that too after AML/KYC (vulnerable to US sanctions and stuff). You only get access to secondary market liquidity without it, which means USDT is technically non-convertible for most people. Countries shouldn’t allow large firms to hold much of it and instead offload it abroad.

Also proof that volatility matters, and BTC doesn’t work well for every day transactions.

Real

The U.S. was perfectly happy with Hasina for over a decade btw despite her repressive policies.

Ultimately, it’s good BNP got the majority (they’ve been trying to moderate their positions to get some AL voters) and Jamaat fascist collaborators got screwed.

AI Bubble Fears Are Creating New Derivatives

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-14/ai-bubble-fears-are-creating-new-derivatives-credit-weekly

FPTP is such shit.

All this is just capitalism, the capitalists only care about turning money into more money. They don’t care how that money is coming from, asset price inflation, Government, credit whatever. One can call it a different variant, but its just capitalism at core.

I mean, MIC has been a thing for decades, basically getting guaranteed transfers from the US Government. The banks were bailed out with $28T of Gov funds during GFC and Obamna did nothing to those responsible for it. The $28T didn’t go into a void, it becomes hoards for the capitalists, which aren’t taxed well or at all.

Hasan or whoever saying they will vote third party doesn’t change the actual reality at all. Will millions of people get out and vote for the corporate Democrat? Why is this so difficult for liberals to understand.

Also, he lives in California, where Democrats have won Presidential elections continously. It makes even less of a difference. Let him vote what he believes rather than stupid harm reduction which doesn’t even apply

significant amount of the AI investment leaks abroad, all the GPU imports, server stuff and all, and another huge chunk goes to capitalist hoards. very little domestic multipliers, maybe some temporary construction jobs some staff but thats it.

It does hold up some asset prices.

“manslaughter”

The Germans and the exporters won’t like it.

Whether it’s borrowing or spending itself is complicated. Because EU itself making bonds would mean member countries will have to tax more (depending on who are taxed, it’ll be bad for members’ growth), provide EU with Euros to pay the debt (politically difficult), also will mean high interest rates (considering there is no lender of last resort).

Or ECB could buy the debt instead but then certain members will complain. Neither works well.

Invoicing/settlement currency is not the same as source of foreign currency. Net settlement of imbalances have to be done somehow.

And yea, China exported real goods and imported claims on foreigners/foreign assets/

If China sells goods, receives Dollars and then swaps it for gold, or just real assets in Africa then it still means the surplus is settled in foreign assets. If foreigners can’t hold CNY assets, then adjustment happens by China holding foreign assets instead. Even if China holds 0 Treasuries, 0 USD assets and only real assets even then a trade surplus country like China is accumulating foreign assets, so the world is not holding financial claims on China, it’s still the creditor and Yuan (a financial asset) isn’t the asset the world is holding.

And look at what % of total trade is swapped for real assets. I can’t find the exact numbers but real assets are more complicated to obtain. Commodities tend to bubble up when you buy too much of it. Keep in mind they have over a trillion dollar trade surplus.

. If China stops recycling its surplus into the US bond market then the US loses its primary source of cheap credit.

Not how credit works, it is rest of the world’s demand for US Dollars that results in US having a current account deficit, again rest of the world is willing to accept USD, US fiscal deficits are financed by spending itself. If China and the whole world decides they don’t want Treasuries, US domestic holders can buy it instead, and if domestic people don’t find yield attractive, the Fed can buy it. Or, Treasury can simply spend without providing free money assets i.e. Treasuries. The real adjustment wouldn’t US can’t ‘finance itself’ or whatever but shows up in exchange rates, as I said, Americans will have less foreign goods. And Trump has already done a light version of that with his tariffs.

trade with China

Pay for the trade how?

You can look at balance of payments data of large countries and it will tell you U.S. and West make up biggest portion of their Trade and Financial Account. Indonesia, Malaysia all these countries earn significant amount of their foreign currencies from the U.S.

China’s trade surplus by definition has to be paid for by a capital/financial account surplus, so on the whole it means China (private, public and the central bank) accumulates financial claims on the rest of the world. Since China doesn’t supply Yuan in significant amounts (due to capital controls and their policy choices), the large chunk of the claims are in US Dollars, Euros and other first world currencies. In other words, other countries must pay for China’s trade surplus somehow.

This can change, for example, if China opens up capital controls, then other countries may borrow from China to buy Chinese goods. What makes Western inflows different is that they purchase some amounts of third world currency assets, like Indonesian Rupiah equities, debt which brings in foreign currencies without debt service risk (at least under a floating currency). If Chinese Government or people were allowed and encouraged to do that this may change.

Not them, but you can’t sell Treasuries without a counterparty. China is only able to sell these because there is a buyer on the other side.

And when China sells Dollars which they obtain from sale of Treasuries for Yuan, the Yuan appreciates in the foreign exchange market. But even here, there is a counterparty, someone must be willing to part with Yuan and accept Dollars, the price moves only.

The thing is, it’s still relatively easy even with Trump tariffs to get Dollars, plenty of Americans buying financial and real assets abroad, US runs a trade deficit despite Trump. And countries excluding China have been doing whatever they can to obtain Dollars. Since Yuan appreciates, these countries will have to work harder/get lower goods from China.

Dollar’s International dominance will end when countries increase domestic demand and Governments do an export ban, at least some restrictions on the US or if China or some major economy supplies what US is doing currently, which is not happening right now.

Even this doesn’t mean the end of the Dollar, USD will continue to be in demand within the US, but US will lose some of the resources, labor extracted from elsewhere (real terms of trade) and prices go up (bad news for Treatlers). But it won’t be screwed like Venezuela or Syria. Even lesser tier first world currencies like the British Pound, Polish Zloty etc still have disproportionate privilege.