The Rise in Banks' Assets Since the Great Depression

This chart shows the percentage of banks' assets that consist of cash and treasuries. The higher this figure is, the more of their total assets are anomaly risk-free assets like bank reserves at the Fed and treasury and agency securities. In recent years, banks have among the highest allocations they've ever had,. At least going back to the 50s to find a similar period where they were this invested as a percentage of their assets into cash andTreasury. This whole story contributes to why inflation is likely to be persistent once we get past a brief cyclical distillation period.