Biz: Reward for risk: The Federal Reserve made a huge profit in 2009
- $46.1 billion the size of the Federal Reserve’s profits in 2009
- $14.4 billion the increase in the Fed’s profits from 2008 source
- Why the increase? Simple. The Fed lowered its standards and became the buyer of last resort, buying assets nobody else wanted, and getting profits from those assets. In case you’re wondering, by the way, they dump these profits back to the Treasury.