With Fed's 2008 Minutes, It's What Wasn't Discussed That Matters

After US Federal Reserve (Fed) watchers and the media poured over the recently released 2008 meeting transcripts, discussing ad nauseam what was said and the inner meaning of such statements, can the real story be found in what wasn’t discussed?

As the housing market was collapsing all around it, the Fed, a semi-private institution whose majority shareholders are said to include the largest US banks, was making decisions to purchase mortgage-backed securities.  The large banks had recently engaged in a highly profitable escapade where they packaged toxic assets into opaque mortgage-backed securities that were...