--What the Fed Knew And Didn't Tell (via EconomicPolicyJournal)
Bloomberg News is out with an important new study of the financial crisis and government actions to "battle" the crisis. Based on Bloomberg’s examination of 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under a FOIA request and central bank databases detailing more than 21,000 transactions, Bloomberg writes: • Taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret loans helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger. • Challenges the view championed by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and others that saving the banks meant saving the economy. • Brings to light that bankers used the money to lobby against reforms, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers, even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse. • Banks likely have earned an estimated $12.9 billion in profit by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market rates. ---------
A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid, details suggest taxpayers paid a price that included secret funding that helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger, writes Bloomberg. A Bloomberg interactive graphic identifying by exactly how much individual banks profited from the Fed loans is here.
The Fed’s Secret Liquidity Lifelines
We are the soldiers for righteousnessAnd we are not sent here by the politicians you drink with - L. Dube, rip
They only made $13 billion off of $1.2 Trillion in money?
I don't think it's that surprising considering that they probably had trillions in losses before the bailouts.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."