Would Americans struggling to find jobs object to the Federal Reserve's $16 trillion bailout to foreign banks?The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a... | |
You are misrepresenting what the audit stated. For anyone who is interested, the audit report can be found at http://gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
There was nothing secret about the Federal Reserve's extraordinary lending programs. Each of the programs were discussed in detail in the 2008, 2009, and 2010 annual reports to Congress. Amounts that were outstanding in each program are listed on the Fed's balance sheet and were shown on the weekly H.4.1 statistical release which are all public information. For example, here is the statistical release from March 5, 2009 http://federalreserve.gov/releases/h...
Also, there were news reports from the period that specifically covered several of the extraordinary lending programs. Yup, it was so secret that it was announced in the media. http://nytimes.com/2008/05/03/busine... http://forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/03/16/afx4778831.html http://reuters.com/article/2008/10/08/us-financial-fed-idUSTRE4979AK20081008 and I can provide dozens of others.
Second, there was never $16 trillion in loans outstanding. Most of the extraordinary lending were for loans that matured overnight to address temporary liquidity issues. Also, most the extraordinary lending programs required adequate collateral from the borrower. Almost all of the extraordinary programs have now ended and all loans made under those programs were repaid, on-time, and with interest. Of course, you would know that if you had actually read the report. See page 4 of the report.
Contrary to the blathering of certain politicians and some uninformed people on the Internet, all of the lending programs established minimum interest rates and the terms of the loans. The Primary Dealer Credit Facility only made overnight loans and the interest varied from as low as 0.5% to 3.25%. The Term Auction Facility made loans for 28-day and 84-day periods. The interest rate for those loans varied from 0.25% to 4.65%.
As for loans to foreign banks and corporations, the law governing the Federal Reserve specifically allows those types of transactions. If Senator Sanders wants to complain about those transactions, he should probably read the law first. It wasn't that the Federal Reserve did something it wasn't supposed to do. It did exactly what was allowed by law. Since Congress wrote and enacted that law, it was Congress that allowed those transactions to happen.
See 12 USC 347c and 12 USC 347d
TARP was a program handled by the Treasury. The Federal Reserve is setup by law to be independent and has the power under the law to do what it did.
Finally, the Federal Reserve is independently audited every year. Those audits ARE complete financial audits. What Ben Bernanke and others opposed was releasing to the public the names of who borrowed and how much they borrowed. The independent audits do review those transactions to ensure that the reported outstanding amount shown on the balance sheet is accurate. Also, a risk assessment review is performed to ensure that the Federal Reserve follows its procedures for limiting risk. Ben Bernanke and others were not opposed to an audit, they were opposed to releasing names of those who borrowed for obvious reasons.
What I am mad is that When a British bank fails we bail them out, but when an Icelandic bank fails, the Brits go after and force the Icelandic to give up a quarter of their income to bail out the English who invested in Icelandic bank.
My opinion, is that either we force England to take responsibility for the failure of Icesave and not pressure Iceland to compensate for the failure, or force their companies to take responsibility for their irresposnible investment and give back the bailout. They can't have it both ways.
Hippo, it is true, although, I am not sure of the numbers, and it was plastered on the news, although I won't say front page. Newspapers are a bit shy in angering banks since they are all going bankrupt.
It doesn't matter how many Right Wingers repeat the lie, it's still a lie. Your charges are completely fabricated and the website you're referring to is the paranoid fantasy of a right wing basment dweller. Show me one link to this story on a credible financial news website, then we'll talk.
link?
If this is true, then it should be plastered over front page news. I can't find any evidence on the web though.
NAWWWWW!
No.
Probably not.
OK, maybe just a little....
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Oh, H3LL Yeah!!!
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