From the Friday, August 21, 2026 print edition:
The Fed and the other became not market makers of last resort, but leveraged buy-and-hold investors of last resort, a completely different thing. A market maker is constantly buying and selling. The Fed was only buying, not selling, in order to push up the price of the securities and to drive down their yields. A market maker is in it to make money on the bid-asked spread; the Fed created giant leveraged naked long positions that might, and then did, lose vast amounts of money.
Alex J. Pollock
Mises Institute
Lake Forest, Ill.
