Did the federal reserve print off a lot of currency in order to provide liquidity for a possible y2k disaster?

Answer 1

I think they did. Series 1996 $100 bills were indeed printed in several times normal quantities.. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing publishes how much paper money is printed on a monthly basis, sorted by denomination and serial number run. They don't have any data before 2003 on their web site.

The one central bank that really went overboard in this respect is Australia. They printed so many 1999 dated $100 bills that they are still being released. For all you Australians that don't know where the date is, it's the first two numbers (not letters) in the seral number.

Answer 2

My friend that works at a bank told me that all local banks were fully stocked with cash, when Y2K was a scare.

The local banks "buy" cash from the closest federal reserve branch by writing a check drawn on their own local bank account and the FED sends them cash.

So the question is, A. was depositors money used to buy the cash? Or B. do local banks have a line of credit up to a certain amount & the FED simply sends the local bank cash hoping the local bank has enough funds on hand to cover the check.

I would guess B.

Answer 3

yeah and now the value of a dollar is like 4 cents backed by gold, ever since 1918 the dollar has been an idea, a number in a database, that corporations send to eachother, adding subtracting and the like, but it is not backed by gold like it used to be, now it truly is just fancy paper