Federal Funds Market
  
Every night, the moon comes out, the sun goes to bed, and banks are making overnight loans to each other.
Banks have to meet certain "reserve requirements," meaning they have to have a certain amount of funds on hand each night. One night, a bank might have more money than they need on hand, so they offload the extra onto another bank in the form of a loan. Another night, that same bank might come up short, so it takes a loan from another bank to meet those reserve requirements. Banks can also borrow directly from the Federal Reserve, but they usually borrow from each other before doing that.
The federal funds market is the total of all of these transactions, or all of the money borrowed by all of the banks. The federal funds market is full of "federal funds," because those loans are subject to interest rate targets set by the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. When they set the interest rates high, borrowing will go down. When they set the interest rates low, borrowing will go up. Well, that’s the idea anyway.
See: FOMC.
Related or Semi-related Video
Econ: What is the Federal Budget?0 Views
And finance Allah shmoop What is the federal budget And
no it's not an oxymoron Okay people sing it with
me I am the very model of a modern budget
Federal cost trillions Whether Congress is conservative or liberal that's
a four with twelve zeros for commas and no decimal
Most funds come from income taxes both corporate and individual
Ah third from payroll tax is blah blah blah OK
at the music Air people boy Yeah that was Gilbert
and Sullivan Ask your great grand parents about that one
Anyway Here's the money that comes in from the federal
government It's what they spend We've got forty seven percent
from personal income taxes That's like revenue to government on
our backs Those air the tax returns you have to
file of recorder and then finally every April fifteenth Then
there's another nine percent of federal revenue that comes from
corporate taxes Basically income taxes for Cos The next big
chunk comes from payroll taxes yet another tax on corporations
It makes up about a third of the federal government's
revenue And that's the money that's earmarked or tagged for
Social Security that while you and your employer page time
you get your paycheck Well then you've got some little
stuff that trickles in You've got tariffs and small stuff
that doesn't really add up to a whole lot anyway
So that's how the money comes in Those bear the
revenues that run our government members of Congress I'll figure
out what they want to spend money on Basically once
they make a deal they need to get the president
to sign off on it And if it's a big
budget item and basically that's how budgets get made So
how does the federal government spend our money Well three
fifth of the total budget goes to social programs that
stuff like Social Security the unemployed Medicare Medicaid and all
those types of programs Three fifth that sixty percent of
our total budget goes for all this stuff Right down
here we were listing for you They're for free After
that well about a sixth of the budget goes to
the military Another six percent gets spent on debt service
That's just paying the interest expense on the bonds the
U S Government has issued to make up for its
deficit spending What is deficit spending It means that when
we do our budget we take in less money than
we spend So we have a deficit or earnings losses
If we record operation basically year after year after year
and we have to borrow money to make up for
the annual massive losses Yeah runs a company like that
All right well let's look a little closer The federal
government spending here there's too broad categories that spending falls
into There's mandatory spending and that stuff that's been budgeted
by previous legislation lease already been committed to Contractually we
have to spend the money There's no optionality here It's
set in stone is part of the social programs the
so called entitlements you hear about in the press all
the time You know stuff like Social Security unemployment Medicare
Medicaid And if we don't spend that money for all
the old people who are sick and miserable and dying
while they would be even sicker and more miserable and
dying faster so we have to spend that money The
other big part of the federal budget is called discretionary
spending This is also stuff that lawmakers can negotiate on
a year to year basis The biggest part of the
discretionary budget is the military well The budget also includes
benefits for veterans and that's like stuff like Gil mental
care for people who did one hundred ninety seven jumps
into Afghanistan and now have PTSD It's also people who
got Lim shot off defending our country So they call
that discretionary But it really isn't There's a number of
other smaller expenses that fit into this part of the
budget There's money for housing money for education money for
international aid pretty much anything else But it's important to
remember that the mandatory spending and the military make up
the biggest part of the Total Budget III What we
spend more money on ad in the service on the
dead I'ii interest payments and all of that Together those
programs equal eighty two percent of the federal budget OK
about those debts Well each year the government out spends
its revenue like we said and that's what's called our
deficit spending here So to make up for this the
government has to borrow more and more and more money
And it does so by issuing bonds T bills chinos
long bones all that kind of stuff Every year these
additional deaths get thrown onto the ever growing pile of
debt And this is what's called the national debt Right
You see signs that calculate our national debt how fast
it's growing and all that Well as of press time
right now that total national debt tops twenty one trillion
dollars and it's growing all the time All right so
let's go out on a big finish here Ready Oh
I am the very model of a modern budget federal
iris Men in black make sure revenue states accountable Spending
mandatory These things they say are not negotiable Discretionary choosing
stuff by mainly troops and generals Don't forget interest charges
These things are not ephemeral Sorry we're almost done here
to pay for this We run up debts that some
might call incredible To keep this up we better keep
our credit rating credible and pray to pay for all
the programs running within the state Several I am the
very model of a modern budget federal who feeling a
little lightheaded here All right I think I'll just light 00:05:00.153 --> [endTime] out for a second federal budget Good luck
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The Federal Open Market Committee's purpose is to manage financial outcomes through monetary policy.