Wall Street Bailout: Tax-Payers' Tab is a Cool $9 Trillion

[Octafish]

Didn't We the People make a profit bailing out the banksters?



Not, according to Pam Martens:

Fed Finally Forks Up Documents Showing It Funded Wall Street's Off-Balance Sheet Vehicle

The Tax-Payers' Tab: a Cool $9 Trillion and Then Some

By PAM MARTENS
CounterPunch
December 20, 2010

On December 1, the Fed was forced to release details of 21,000 funding transactions it made during the financial crisis, naming names and dollar amounts. Disclosure was due to a provision sparked by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The voluminous data dump from the notoriously secret Fed shows just how deeply the Federal Reserve stepped into the shoes of Wall Street and, as the crisis grew and the normal channels of lending froze, the Fed effectively replaced Wall Street and money centers banks in terms of financing.

The Fed has thus far reported, without even disclosing specifics of its lending from its discount window, which it continues to draw a dark curtain around, that it supplied, in total, more than $9 trillion to Wall Street firms, commercial banks, foreign banks, corporations and some highly questionable off balance sheet entities. (Much smaller amounts were outstanding at any one time.)

A careful review of these data makes it highly likely the GAO will be releasing some startling findings come next July 2011. That’s when the American people will have a much clearer picture of how the Federal Reserve shoveled taxpayer money to Wall Street by the trillions. As a result of Senator Sanders’ legislative efforts, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is to complete an audit by next summer of the Fed’s lending programs during the financial crisis.

SNIP...

In other words, the leverage in the system was not coming just from mortgage securitizations and esoteric derivatives but from off-balance-sheet debt parking schemes quite similar to that used by Enron.

SNIP...

Whether it was Credit Default Swaps or Collateralized Debt Obligations squared or conduits or SIVs, two words emerge from the hubris: leverage and greed. By leveraging the balance sheet, upper management could lay claim to massive compensation and bonuses.

CONTINUED...

http://counterpunch.org/martens12202010.html

After getting $9 Trill, I'd put up a big flag, too.