FED Made $9 Trillion in Emergency Overnight Loans -- Thank Bernie, otherwise we'd never know.

[Octafish]

A big reminder of whom our government today serves:

Fed made $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans

By Chris Isidore, senior writer
December 1, 2010: 6:05 PM ET
CNNMoney.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve made $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the financial crisis, according to newly revealed data released Wednesday.

The loans were made through a special loan program set up by the Fed in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008 to keep the nation's bond markets trading normally.

The amount of cash being pumped out to the financial giants was not previously disclosed. All the loans were backed by collateral and all were paid back with a very low interest rate to the Fed -- an annual rate of between 0.5% to 3.5%.

SNIP...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who had authored the provision of the financial reform law that required Wednesday's disclosure, called the data that was released incredible and jaw-dropping.

"The $700 billion Wall Street bailout turned out to be pocket change compared to trillions and trillions of dollars in near zero interest loans and other financial arrangements that the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution," Sanders said.

CONTINUED...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/

I knew our government likes to look first after the rich and all, but... Wow. Didn't know they'd empty the vault for the swells.

Here's an idea: Spread a few trillions around the Midwest, Southwest, Northeast, Northwest,Rocky Mountain, Atlantic, Pacific and Southern states and pretty soon we'd see some real job creation. We'd likely also see better schools, more police and fire fighters, smooth roads, safe bridges and a heck of a lot more. Who knows? We might even be able to afford universal health care.

PS: Thank goodness for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, We the People who foot the tab would never know.

[leftstreet]

1. This is so much classier than just leaving it somewhere on pallets

:puke:

K&R

NICE PHOTO!

[Octafish]

3. Pallets!

They spend it so well, don't they?

The art in the OP is from here: http://thejunction.net/justfacts/2008/05/26/gop-fiscal-honesty-myth-shattered-billions-lost-in-iraq/

[enid602]

5. cash packs

Personally, I prefer the shrink-wrapped 'cashd packs' we distributed in Iraq.

[leftstreet]

6. We coulda had a Jobs Program: Packing/Shipping Cash to Rich People

:cry:

[Octafish]

7. Good idea, but I don't know if Uncle Sam could hire enough workers.

Remember all them stiffs who got fired working clean-up in the Gulf? They couldn't pass the impromptu pee test. How could our public employees TRUST them with CASH?

Above: :sarcasm:

Below: Not :sarcasm:

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

[pnwmom]

2. They were loans and they were paid back.

And they kept the economy from undergoing an even bigger collapse. Some of these loans to corporations, for example, allowed the corporations to make their payrolls at a time when the banks had frozen their funds.

I'm not sure what people are complaining about.

[Octafish]

4. I'm complaining about Wall Street getting the gold and We the People get the shaft.

David Stockman, of all people, gets it.

[pnwmom]

9. Wall Street paid back the loans. And the loans kept millions

of average people from losing their jobs.

And David Stockman is talking about Federal Deposit Insurance. That has nothing to do with overnight loans.

[Octafish]

12. Stockman brought up the point of Uncle Sam backing Wall Street Casino with the US Taxpayer

"The fact is, Wall Street is entirely involved in capital markets activity, which is fine. But that's free market activity. They shouldn't be involved in it if they have got deposit insurance and if they have got the Fed window behind them. That's for deposit banks, not for gunslingers and for hedge funds and for capital market players." -- David Stockman

[pnwmom]

14. Overnight loans have nothing to do with Wall Street and Federal Deposit Insurance.

[Octafish]

25. The article makes clear money went to shore up the trading houses and bond markets.

Thank you for clarifying for me the FDIC part, pnwmom.

My concern is tax money was used to bail out the private casino.

Here's what Sanders' press release says:

Fed Disclosure Lifts Veil of Secrecy, Sanders Says

EXCERPT...

"Almost two years ago I asked Chairman Bernanke to tell the American people which financial institutions and corporations received trillions of dollars as part of the Wall Street bailout. He refused. Today, as a result of an audit-the-Fed provision I put into the financial reform bill, we finally learn the truth - and it is astounding," Sanders said. (Read his full statement here.)

"We now know that Fed loaned trillions of dollars at zero or near-zero interest rates not only to the largest financial institutions in this country, but also to many of our largest corporations - including GE, McDonalds and Verizon. Most surprising, the Fed also lent huge sums of money to foreign private banks and corporations" he added.

Among the corporate beneficiaries were Citigroup, which received over $1.8 trillion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; and Bear Stearns, which received more than $960 billion in short-term loans with an interest rate as low as 0.5 percent.

The Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, Some of the largest corporations in this country also received a multi-trillion bailout. Among those are General Electric, to which the Fed made over $16 trillion in financing under a commercial paper funding facility alone; McDonald's; Verizon; and Toyota.

CONTINUED...

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=2169cdbb-b7c8-41f8-bef2-77c3ff5ce4ab

From the above, I see private financial institutions, including foreign investment houses, getting loans backed by the US taxpayer.

[girl gone mad]

28. Virtually 0% interest loans, backed by worthless collateral.

Despite what the naysayers claim, this information is exceedingly important because it gives us a glimpse into just how fucked the banks were back around the time the Fed was telling us that subprime was "contained" and our banking system was perfectly solvent.

The casino that should have been allowed to fail was propped up by all of us, and these loans were rolled over with even more support from the Fed as they continued to pump up bubbles. The government borrowed back from the banks at artificially high rates, and widespread fraudulent activity, such as HFT, was encouraged and subsidized.

The money to fill in this enormous sinkhole didn't just appear out of thin air as a result of some brilliant financial engineering. American workers and savers are still paying for it through ZIRP and commodity bubbles, lower wages and high unemployment, fraudclosure, front-running schemes and bank tax forgiveness plans all leading to soon to be austerity for the middle class.

[girl gone mad]

18. How did these insolvent banks get the money to pay back Fed loans?

Even at .007%, where did the profits come from, while they were paying out record compensation and cutting off lending almost entirely?

Explain that.

[bvar22]

29. "Loans" at near 0 (zero) interest.

Give me just ONE TRILLION at 0 (ZERO) interest,
and I'll GLADLY pay it back a year later....every single dollar.

That is $9 TRILLION that should have been working for US, NOT the Big Banks.
If you were lucky, you might have been able to borrow back some of your money, and PAY the BANK 7% - 30% for the favor.

We REFORMED the Democratic Party
the Old Fashioned Way!

We BOUGHT IT!!!!
Hahahahahahaha!

[azul]

31. Secrecy and corruption are worth complaning about.

A private corporation (Fed), that is ensconced in government somehow, acts to represent the American people and their money in such secrecy that the congress, who have the responsibility to watch over its activities, doesn't even know what it is doing.

And then the conflict of interest: the Fed is being the banker to the banks. The private fed banks would be in trouble should the rest of the industry fail, so it does its magic and proves that there is no downside for banks gambling with other people's money and credit and debts -they have a line to the taxpayer safety-net. The federal deficit -taxpayers take the hit but had no say in the deal.

Sure, you can argue that failed banks would give us major depressions, but my point is the taxpayers should have been consulted and been able to set the terms for saving the industry that made this fiasco happen in the first place.

[Greyhound]

38. No, they weren't. This is not about the so-called TARP loans.

This is part of the commitment of unlimited backing and legalized fraud that has enabled the Wall Street government to pretend that the economy didn't collapse. It has shifted their bankruptcy onto our backs.

It is a blatant fraud and the price will be paid.

[taught_me_patience]

47. Actually, it hasn't been

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/12/bailout-recipients/#comments

Bailout Recipients
By Barry Ritholtz - December 2nd, 2010, 2:30PM Pro Publica has been maintaining a list of bailout recipients, updating the amount lent versus what was repaid.

So far, 938 Recipients have had $607,822,512,238 dollars committed to them, with $553,918,968,267 disbursed. Of that $554b disbursed, less than half — $220,782,546,084 — has been returned.

Whenever you hear pronunciations of how much money the TARP is making, check back and look at this list. It shows the TARP is deeply underwater.

[Octafish]

55. Thank you for the heads-up, taught_me_patience. Astounding!

Bookmarked that page and learning a lot there that they don't put on my television screen.

[roamer65]

51. While I'm not a big supporter of the Fed, they did the right thing.

It would have served no one well to have had complete seizure in the credit markets.

But we do need to know what the fed is doing. Kudos to Bernie.

[SidDithers]

8. You do know how overnight loans work, don't you?...nt

edit:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9672386&mesg_id=9672490
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9672386&mesg_id=9672426

Sid

[Octafish]

10. So what's to stop the FED from finding the money to fix some of the nation's ills?

After all, they found money to loan to UBS, Barclays and other foreign banks?

And you do know that some of the money went to hedge funds and other "risky" operations?

Right, SidDithers? Right?

[pnwmom]

17. It's one thing to make an overnight loan. It's quite another

to spend money that's adding to a deficit and not immediately being paid back.

I agree that we SHOULD be spending money on the country's infrastructure and putting people back to work. But these overnight loans, which are immediately paid back, have nothing to do with that and AREN'T getting in the way of other important Federal spending.

[girl gone mad]

19. Wait a second.

Now you're just attempting to distort reality entirely.

As if the Fed doesn't have trillions of illiquid MBS on their books and accounting tricks magically create real value.

[pnwmom]

20. Why do you keep mixing apples and oranges? n/t

[girl gone mad]

23. Money is fungible.

[Taitertots]

46. They are legislatively prohibited from doing so

The people who should be using money to solve our ills are Congress.

[unblock]

11. grossly distorted headline, the real number is nowhere near $9 trillion

when merrill borrowed overnight 226 times, they counted the same dollars 226 times. this is a completely idiotic way of counting a loan, unless the goal is to artificially make the number appear outrageously huge.

if i go to the atm and deposit and immediately withdraw the same $100 every day for a year, it's not at all reasonable to say i put $36,500 into my account, nor that i took out $36,500. it's technically correct, but pointlessly obtuse. at no time did i ever have more than $100, nor did the bank have more than $100, the $36,500 didn't exist except by counting the same $100 over and over again.



thinki of this program instead as about $40 billion loaned out for an average of 2/3rd of a year. that would be a far more accurate description of what was going on. now that might be considered outrageous or not, but at least we're talking about what actually happened rather than getting outraged about a distortion.

[Octafish]

13. Thanks for the explanation. It still adds up to trillions in loans for Wall Street ...

...and zero for Main Street. Which is the point.

In other words, the nice people who run the FED can always find money for their rich chums, but can't spare a dime for the middle class who pay the lion's share of the tax revenuees.

[unblock]

15. no, tens of billions.

i agree about the main street vs. wall street point, they bent over backwards to preserve, with essentially no strings attached, the institutions who screwed up, when they should have made it contingent on the banks helping individuals in need (at a minimum, actually get them lending again).

[pnwmom]

16. The money that kept the banks in business kept millions of other businesses

in business and millions of average, every day Americans in their jobs and out of unemployment lines.

[girl gone mad]

21. Actually, keeping the banks in business is contributing to American unemployment.

WHALEN: "FED LET THE REAL ECONOMY GO TO HELL" 12-1-2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8vFbZ4J8kQ&feature=player_embedded

[leveymg]

34. The key is in the interest and value gained on all those overnight window withdrawals

That's the purpose of the NY Fed pumping liquidity into the system - to give big banks the use of assets that can be converted into gains. It's a gargantuan give-away.

So this isn't just about a paper shuffle - it's about the use value and opportunity cost of keeping zombie banks afloat rather than just taking that money and having federal agencies, states, and municipalities hire people with it, which would multiply its value many times and direct the income to those who need it most - but, that's not the purpose of this game. It's to transfer money upwards and outwards - basically a bribe to foreign banks to keep them from withdrawing their U.S. market investment accounts all at once . . . but, they will eventually anyway, plus the profits they make on Trillions of U$D given out at the Overnight and Fed Funds windows.

Okay, you little ghosts and goblins -- oh, that's a scary mask -- hold out your bags, and here comes your candy. Just, don't soap up the cars in the driveway on your way next door, please.

Trick-or-Treat!

[Octafish]

42. When hypocrites howl.

From the World Socialist Web Site, we learn it weren't TARP money; 'twas a bailout from the shadows:

Fed report reveals multi-trillion-dollar “shadow bailout”

By Andre Damon
wsws.org
3 December 2010

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday posted details of its multi-trillion-dollar “shadow bailout” programs, showing that nearly every major US financial institution benefited from billions in unreported government loans.

The data from 21,000 Fed transactions carried out between December 2007 and July 2010 involves eleven special lending facilities set up by the US central bank at the height of the financial crisis to funnel trillions of dollars into large financial companies. The money was lent at close to zero interest with no strings attached. The banks and corporations on the receiving end of the massive bailout were not required to even report what they did with the government cash.

The vast scale of the bailout underscores the fraud of the endless claims that “there is no money” for jobs, mortgage relief or even extended unemployment benefits. The publication of the Fed data simultaneously with the refusal of Congress to extend long-term jobless benefits, Obama’s pay freeze for federal workers and the preparations to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich while slashing social programs and tax benefits for the working class, highlights the naked class interests pursued by the government and both big business parties.

SNIP...

The New York Times on Thursday noted that hedge funds and big investors made huge speculative profits from the Fed lending programs. One of these programs, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), extended low-cost loans for firms to buy securities backed by mortgages, auto loans, student loans and other forms of commercial credit. Among those who profited from such loans, the Times reported, was Kendrick R. Wilson III, a former executive at Goldman Sachs who had been a top aide to Henry Paulson, Bush’s treasury secretary and author of TARP and other bank bailout schemes.

The data also shows that 40 percent of the Federal Reserve’s lending to American International Group, the failed insurance giant, went to its life insurance subsidiaries, which were engaged in wild speculation and would have failed without the Fed bailout. The central bank provided these firms with billions of dollars in financing despite the fact that it had no mandate to regulate or assist them.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/loan-d03.shtml

Remember how surprised the ENRON managers were when they discovered they'd been sold out by Kenny Boy?

[leveymg]

44. The big banks grabbed extra trillions in profits for themselves at taxpayer expense.

All of it off the books, of course. The meltdown was essentially a secret raid on the Treasury.

[Octafish]

49. Wanna take a wild guess for whose benefit?

The "Bush Family Evil Empire" -- the War Party, the Money Party, the Have-Mores, whatever they want or don't want to be called.



War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

[Swamp Rat]

22. follow the money

[Octafish]

26. Now THAT is an outstanding example of the power of money.

Everyone without buckets of cash would look ridiculous riding around on a reindeer with flames flying out its bottom in a cowboy hat.

PS: With or without money and flamethrowing reindeer, THAT guy always looks like an isshule.

PPS: ¡Muchisimas gracias, Compay Primero! ¡Esta cabron, ese pendeja!

[Hubert Flottz]

24. But the government can't afford to help the unemployed

[Octafish]

27. Well, our post-employment economy is the new way of thinking of things.

Remember FDR? Now there was a guy who thought the powers of government -- including its ultra-precious tax dollars -- should be used to make life better for ALL Americans. How archaic is THAT?

[laughingliberal]

30. And think about this. That's just the part we get to know. What would the deep audit have revealed?

Fucking scary!

[Octafish]

37. A forensic economist brought that up when the 'Wall Street reform' package went through...

William Black Warns That Financial Reform Bill Won't Stop The Wall Street Crime Wave

Professor Black, who investigated the S&L scams on behalf of the Department of Justice and described the concept of "Control Fraud," was pretty shown the door.

[Canuckistanian]

32. What do they put in the water in Vermont?

Sen. Sanders is a national treasure who needs to be cloned.

[Octafish]

40. I'd like to bottle whatever he's having, too.

Something about water worth grokking:

The Waters of Knowledge

versus

The Waters of Uncertainty

Mass Denial in the Assassination of President Kennedy

by E. Martin Schotz


INTRODUCTION

My task this afternoon is to explore with you the reasons the American people do not know who killed President Kennedy and why. In order to do this we will have to deal with three interdependent conspiracies which developed in the course of the assassination and its aftermath. These are (1) the criminal conspiracy to murder the President by a cabal of militarists at the highest echelons of power in the United States; (2) the conspiracy which aided and abetted these murderers after the fact, by covering for the assassins, also a true criminal conspiracy involving an extremely wide circle of government officials across the entire political spectrum and at all levels of government; and (3) a conspiracy of ignorance, denial, confusion, and silence which has pervaded our entire public.

The major focus of my talk today is this third conspiracy on the part of the public, which includes our so-called "critical community". I want to show you that our failure to know is not based on any lack of data or because the data is ambiguous. It is all extremely simple and obvious. Rather we don't know because we are deeply emotionally resistant to what such knowledge tells us about ourselves and our society. Furthermore the powers-that-be do not reward people for such knowledge. Indeed if a person is willing to acknowledge the truth, is in a position to share such knowledge with the public, and wishes to do so, then the organized institutions of our society will turn sharply against such a person.

Now this is not a new problem in the history of society. In fact, I want to read to you a Sufi tale from the Ninth Century which can help to orient us to the problem. The tale is entitled "When the Waters Were Changed." It goes as follows:

When the Waters Were Changed

Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed with dfferent water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water, went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his rdtreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

The struggle for truth in the assassination of President Kennedy confronts us with the problem of the "waters of knowledge" versus "the waters of uncertainty." Let me give you an example involving two important individuals who attempted to bring the truth before the American people. I am speaking of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

CONTINUED...

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/27th_Issue/schotz.html

Thank you for undertstanding what's worth drinking, Canuckistanian. BTW: There's lots of good water in your neck of the woods.

[BzaDem]

33. The actual amount of money wasn't even close to 9 trillion.

If you borrowed 1k, paid back 1k, borrowed 1k, paid back 1k, borrowed 1k, and finally paid back 1k, you would have never borrowed more than 1k at a time. But that would still be reported as 3k.

[leveymg]

35. The profits gained on it were the same as if $9 trillion had been lent out all at once. See #34

[BzaDem]

39. ... and those profits aren't even close to a trillion, let alone 9 trillion.

[leveymg]

50. We'll never know, will we? It was all, zero interest, no questions asked, no strings attached.

Of course the profit wasn't $9 trillion. But, it had the use value equivalent to $9 trillion, which has to be in the billions - a giveaway, much of which flowed to banks outside the U.S.

[Major Hogwash]

36. Did these banks pay back the money yet?

Or is it still being hoarded?

[Octafish]

53. Megaloans of public monies helped private companies make big money at the public's expense...

CNN says they were paid back.

Fed made $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans

By Chris Isidore, senior writer
December 1, 2010: 6:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve made $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the financial crisis, according to newly revealed data released Wednesday.

The loans were made through a special loan program set up by the Fed in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008 to keep the nation's bond markets trading normally.

The amount of cash being pumped out to the financial giants was not previously disclosed. All the loans were backed by collateral and all were paid back with a very low interest rate to the Fed -- an annual rate of between 0.5% to 3.5%.

CONTINUED...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/

The thing is, these loans ($12.3 Trillion) of public monies helped these private companies make money -- lots of time at the public's expense and almost in secret. Matt Rothschild explains:

Bernie Sanders Unearths the Fed’s Sordid Details

By Matthew Rothschild, December 3, 2010

EXCERPT...

These were loans with no interest, or almost no interest, at a time when American consumers and small businesses couldn’t find loans to save their lives.

SNIP...

Even though the U.S. banks that got the easy loans held most of the country’s mortgages and credit cards, the Fed never insisted that they reduce the principal on their mortgages or the interest rates on the credit cards.

“How many Americans could have remained in their homes,” asked Sanders, “if the Fed required these bailed-out banks to reduce mortgage payments as a condition of receiving these secret loans?”

Sanders smells a rate. “I suspect a large portion of these near-zero interest loans were used to buy Treasury securities at a higher interest rate,” he said, thus “providing free money to some of the largest financial institutions in this country on the backs of American taxpayers.”

The financial bailout was a giant boondoggle, undemocratic and kleptocratic to its core.

Leave it to Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist in the Senate, to call it like it is. Most of the other Senators are in the pocket of the banks.

CONTINUED...

http://www.progressive.org/wx120310.html

Supreme Court's right: It pays to have friends with access to other people's money.

[Taitertots]

41. That is a good thing, the FED is acting as the lender of last resort

Complain to Congress about job creation, better schools, fire fighters, universal health care, or roads. The FED isn't responsible for that, neither should it be responsible for that.

Do you want the interest rates to go up, causing unemployment to get worse?
Do you want the money supply to shrink more, causing more unemployment?

[Octafish]

43. It was a bad thing because someone - not the US taxpayer - made big money off the secret deals...

The banks even used the borrowed funds for bonuses and to loan back to Uncle Sam at higher interest.

Here's someone from the World Socialist Web Site who puts it into words better than I:

Fed report reveals multi-trillion-dollar “shadow bailout”

By Andre Damon
WSWS.org
3 December 2010

EXCERPT...

While the Federal Reserve insists that virtually all of the money given to the banks has been repaid, this does not alter the fact that upwards of $20 trillion of public funds was doled out to rescue Wall Street from the results of its own recklessness and criminality, and these virtually free loans enabled the banks to continue their speculative ways and reap hundreds of billions more in profits. No small portion of the windfalls underwritten by the Fed and the Bush and Obama administrations went into the personal accounts of bank and hedge fund CEOs and top executives.

One of the ways the banks profited from the crisis was by using their low-cost government loans to buy Treasury securities, in other words, to lend the cash back to the government at double or quadruple the interest rate at which it was borrowed.

The scale of the bailout reflects the scale of the financial elite’s criminality. The entire boom of the Clinton and Bush years was based essentially on a Ponzi scheme. When it came crashing down, as it was inevitably bound to do, the public treasury was looted to make good the financial aristocracy’s losses.

While most of the Federal Reserve emergency programs were wrapped up by 2010, the government has continued to hide losses incurred from them. For instance, the Federal Reserve is holding over $1 trillion of largely worthless mortgage-backed securities on its balance sheet, insisting that they can eventually be sold at full price.

The direct beneficiaries of these policies were the super-rich. Wall Street used its repayment of the TARP loans in 2009, at least in part with money loaned by the Fed, as an excuse to award itself record bonuses. The largest Wall Street firms set aside $145 billion for compensation that year, breaking every previous record.

SOURCE: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/loan-d03.shtml

The superrich and their toadies at the FED and throughout government didn't give two figs for creating jobs or causing unemployment.

[Taitertots]

45. It was a good thing, We are not going to cut off our nose to spite our face

That article is an incorrect interpretation of the crash. It does nothing to address the obvious results that would have occurred if we hadn't "bailed out" the financial system. Interest rates would be higher and there would be massive deflation. Both would cause dramatic increases in unemployment.

If you don't have an alternative, then the choice is "bail outs" or much higher unemployment. I'm not going to suffer through a significantly worse depression to satisfy your need for ideological purity.

This is the whole reason we have a central bank in the first place. So they can regulate price levels(QE), keep stable interest rates (FED lending), promote long term stable production and employment(Real GDP is rising, unemployment is falling).

If you are looking for a proximate cause for the collapse, look no further than the Republicans. Who deregulated? Republicans. Who didn't regulate when the crash could have been avoided? Republicans. Who wasted trillions on war? Republicans. Who cuts taxes on the rich, cut spending on the poor, and blocks any progress toward recovery? Republicans.

[Major Hogwash]

52. Wow!! That's dynamite! Great article!!

Thanks.

[David Zephyr]

48. Octafish, thanks for posting this truth-telling story & kudos to Bernie Sanders!

K&R.

[Octafish]

54. If there's a Socialist wing of the Democratic Party, I'm there.

The nation can't fly for long on two right wings.
Nor can it fly anywhere on two left wings.
The fuselage in the center provides no lift at all.

Did you see this, from Matt Rothschild?

Bernie Sanders Unearths the Fed’s Sordid Details

PS: Thank you for all you do in the good flight, David Zephyr!