(In contrast, open market operations are arranged with a limited set of dealers of government securities.) In addition, whereas open market operations typically involve lending against government securities, loans through the discount window can be made against a much wider range of collateral, including mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.
Arguably, that stability was only barely becoming evident in the United States in the period immediately preceding the act of terrorism. Aggregate measures of production, employment, and business spending continued to be weak in August. Consumer spending, however, moved higher that month and appeared to be reasonably well maintained in the first part of September.