The Size of the US Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

The United States Central Bank is known as the US Federal Reserve, often called the US Fed.

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/]

Since the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, the a little reported fact in the main stream media is the growth in the size of the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet.
This has been driven by the bailouts, the Federal Reserve buying securities such as mortgage back securities and of course quantative easing, buying US Treasury T-Bonds

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedsbalancesheet.htm]

By reading page 12 here:

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/quarterly_balance_sheet_developments_report_201505.pdf]

One can immediately see the size of the US Federal Reserve Balance Sheet.

A more up to date version is here:-

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm#h41tab9]

Yes, total assets of $4,451,663 MILLION.

That is NOT a typo, that is $4,451 Billion = $4.451 Trillion

The US Annual GDP is about £16.77 trillion

Thus the US Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Assets = 26% of US GDP.

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