U.S. Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, is calling out the Federal Reserve for what he perceives as a lack of transparency and accountability on the part of the central bank upon learning that Fed governor Lael Brainard made donations to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Brainard made three donations to Clinton’s campaign totaling 750 dollars between November 2015 and January 2016.
The donations made by Brainard were within federal rules, though they have drawn criticism because they came during a time when the Fed is trying to make the case that monetary policy should be independent and non-partisan. Vitter said, quote, under its current structure, the Board of Governors doesn’t act with complete autonomy and succumbs to groupthink which has led to megabank bailouts and easy money policies. Close quote
Freddie Mac priced its second Structured Agency Credit Risk transaction of 2016 at 475 million dollars. The reference pool consists of single-family mortgages with an aggregate unpaid principal balance of 17 point 5 billion dollars. The pool contains a subset of 30-year fixed-rate single-family mortgages Freddie Mac acquired between April 1, 2015, and June 30, 2015. Through its credit risk transfer initiatives, Freddie Mac has transferred a substantial portion of credit risk for more than 422 billion dollars in UPB on single-family mortgages.