krebscycle

If the Federal Reserve can float trillions of dollars to large financial institutions at low interest rates to grow the economy, surely they can float the Department of Education the money to fund our students, keep us competitive, and grow our middle class.” – Senator Warren

The National Review’s Ian Tuttle wags his finger (my bold)

[Warren’s Bill] The Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act seeks to extend to students the same loan interest rates allegedly offered to the country’s chief financial institutions. Among the problems with the bill? Said interest rates for said greedy banks do not exist. 

Golly! Those rates that “do not exist” turn out, only four paragraphs later to have a name.

What Warren is alluding to is the Federal Reserve Discount Window, which the Fed defines as “an instrument of monetary policy that allows eligible institutions to borrow money, usually on a short-term basis, to meet temporary shortages of liquidity caused by internal or external disruptions.”

Not only do  “said interest rates do not exist”, but Warren is sadly wrong about why they exist, as we learn when authority is cited just below (“blah, blah” added by me).

As the Daily Beast’s Megan McArdle observes, “No one except possibly a lunatic has told Elizabeth Warren that banks are getting 0.75 percent at the discount window as a thank-you for all the hard work they’re doing helping the economy.” Banks get those low rates for three sound reasons: [blah blah]

That will show poor Professor Warren: the rates don’t exist and also they exist for “sound reasons”.  Don’t try to match wits with the National Review, Professor Warren, they will run circles around you. Well, maybe not around you, but they will run in circles, getting dizzy.