I’ll just have to say that I’m fact-based. New York Fed is fact-based. And I hope we stay that way. Maureen O’Hara: Do you have alternative facts? Just checking, just checking. President Dudley: Look, I think a healthy debate is a good thing about what facts matter and how the world works. You know, people can have different models about how the world works and what’s important, and what’s not. But I think that they have to be based on real evidence. So, I’m going to continue to live in my world, which is very much fact-based. Maureen O’Hara: I think we have time for one more question, and we have someone back there who’s got a mike. Audience Member: Yeah, Mr. Dudley, I have a question. You mentioned that there was some nefarious behavior by banks. I heard you mention that there was some nefarious behavior going on by banks during the financial crisis. President Dudley: Well, the employees of banks. Audience Member: Ok, employees of banks. My question is, there was – some of the big banks, including J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, basically bailing out the government and the FDIC, buying institutions like Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual. In some of these cases, they were given winks and nods by the government that they were not going to be held accountable for let’s say the sins of these institutions that they took over.
Indeed, the very knowledge that the Bank stands ready to purchase assets may be as beneficial as the actual purchases. And over a period of time, as market functioning improves, the quantity of private sector assets held by the Asset Purchase Facility may well decline as assets mature and are rolled over into the private market. This should be seen as a sign of success not of dwindling support. The Bank continues to review actively the case for extending its operations into other corporate credit markets, and recently announced its intention to extend its purchases to include commercial paper secured on loans for working capital. But given the relatively modest size of corporate credit markets in the UK, to increase significantly the scale of our corporate debt purchases would involve changing the nature of our operations. Rather than improve their functioning, large scale asset purchases would risk crowding out private debt markets: substituting for markets rather than supporting them. That is not consistent with the aims of the Asset Purchase Facility and could detract from the long-term efficiency of the economy. A second criticism that is sometimes made against the asset purchase programme is that some of the gilts we have purchased have been from foreign investors and this may limit the effectiveness of the purchases. This argument is based on the supposition that overseas investors may be more likely to reallocate their portfolios into foreign currency assets, rather than into alternative sterling assets, such as corporate bonds or UK equities.