The Federal Reserve and the 4.6 Trillion used for bailouts.

[dust1n]

TALLY SHOWS THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS THE REAL SOURCE OF BAILOUT FUNDS

Today, the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released an assessment of the total cost to taxpayers of the Wall Street bailout. CMD concludes that multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008. Of that, $2 trillion is still outstanding.
CMD’s assessment demonstrates that while the press has focused its attention on the $700 billion TARP bill passed by Congress, the Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans amounting to $3.8 trillion.
Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for these loans, sparking the Bloomberg News lawsuit covered earlier. CMD also concludes that the bailout is far from over as the government has active programs authorized to cost up to $2.9 trillion and still has $2 trillion in outstanding investments and loans.
Learn more about the 35 programs included in the CMD tally by visiting our Total Wall Street Bailout Cost Table, which contains links to pages on each bailout program with details including the current balance sheet for each program.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT SELF-CONGRATULATION PREMATURE

While the Treasury Department has been patting itself on the back for recouping some of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and allegedly making money off of its aid to Citigroup, the CMD accounting shows that TARP is only a small fraction of the federal funds that have gone out the door in support of the financial sector. Far more has been done to aid Wall Street through the back door of the Federal Reserve than through the front door of Congressional appropriations.
The tally shows that more scrutiny needs to be given by policymakers and the media to the role of the Federal Reserve especially as the Fed has accounted for the vast majority of the bailout funds, yet provides far less disclosure and is far less directly accountable than the Treasury.


http://banksterusa.org/content/cmd-...-bailout-tally-46-trillion-spent-bailout-date

 

[Aquitaine]

Jesus the Fed are spending 4.6 Trillion?! I remember not too long ago when they were only passing off roughly 2 trillion to other banks internationally, and before that it wwas about half a trillion, jesus it rises fast!

Here's three interesting videos from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alan Grayson on Bernanke, watch how the amount seems to rise incredibly and yet there's nearly-total secrecy from the Fed:

[youtube]n0NYBTkE1yQ[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQDrVKYWmc

[youtube]DGJW0HEMw7Q[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGJW0HEMw7Q

 

[dust1n]

I wished I lived in Vermont. =[

 

[Sunstone]

I wish we knew the whole extent of the secret bailouts the Fed has given to banks and corporations in recent years. I fear this figure of 4.6 trillion does not include those secret funds.

 

[dust1n]

I wish we knew the whole extent of the secret bailouts the Fed has given to banks and corporations in recent years. I fear this figure of 4.6 trillion does not include those secret funds.

Probably not -- what saddens me is that these loans are probably not going to get fully payed off. The public has to take the costs of all this non-sense, while even if it does pay off, there is no actual profit for the people. Profit will be made for some who receive loans sure, but that hardly comes back around. What's the ol' saying? "Socialize cost, Privatize profit."

 

[Aquitaine]

Probably not -- what saddens me is that these loans are probably not going to get fully payed off. The public has to take the costs of all this non-sense, while even if it does pay off, there is no actual profit for the people. Profit will be made for some who receive loans sure, but that hardly comes back around. What's the ol' saying? "Socialize cost, Privatize profit."

Yeah a lot of this stuff seems to be zero or near-zero interest loans to foreign Central Banks to play with, so that they can then charge their people interest on the new dollars to lend them.

Just like with the commercial banks, they get money interest-free from the Central bank and then give out customers 15-25% interest on their credit cards - pure usury, pure scam.

Hell half the time the commercial banks just virtually create credit out of thin-air anyways, and then expect the people to pay interest just to have access to it? Pffft.

 

[Aquitaine]

LOL remember children, wanting information on the Fed's activity is (Terrorism!) bad (Osama Bin Laden!) for (Socialism!) you (Gays!):

[youtube]VilWVJOhlfM[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VilWVJOhlfM&feature=related

It's also un-American too!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

They should just round everything to a gazillion.

 

[Reverend Rick]

We need a smaller federal government.

 

[Aquitaine]

We need a smaller federal government.

LMAO! The Federal Reserve isn't part of the Federal Government, it's "Independent". It has virtually no oversight or auditting from Congress either.

 

[Reverend Rick]

LMAO! The Federal Reserve isn't part of the Federal Government, it's "Independent". It has virtually no oversight or auditting from Congress either.

I believe Congress is going to try and get a handle on this from the videos I just watched here. Otherwise, I can see us start using a different currency. Oh wait, that's the plan all along right?

 

[dust1n]

We need a smaller federal government.

We need smaller banks.

 

[Aquitaine]

I believe Congress is going to try and get a handle on this from the videos I just watched here. Otherwise, I can see us start using a different currency. Oh wait, that's the plan all along right?

Congress can barely even attempt to pass a bill that will allow them to properly audit the Fed, see HR 1207, to my knowledge it hasn't made much progress so far.

 

[dust1n]

I believe Congress is going to try and get a handle on this from the videos I just watched here. Otherwise, I can see us start using a different currency. Oh wait, that's the plan all along right?

Congress? It was only 2 representatives.

 

[Aquitaine]

Congress? It was only 2 representatives.

Well just to be picky, 1 Representative and 1 Senator

Actually make that two Senators since it's Ron Paul's Bill IIRC.

 

[Mathematician]

What does it mean by "4.6 Trillion" used for bailouts? Did the Fed lax banking restrictions to allow for more private money growth? The Fed can't print new money.

 

[Reverend Rick]

We need smaller banks.

How will smaller banks keep the Fed from giving away trillions to people they won't even tell us about?

 

[Troublemane]

What does it mean by "4.6 Trillion" used for bailouts? Did the Fed lax banking restrictions to allow for more private money growth? The Fed can't print new money.

Actually, the Fed prints all the money. Congress can't print anything.

Back after the bailouts happened, Ron Paul asked Tim Geithner if the government was going to monetize the debt, and he said, "NO, definitely not!"...and then, the Treasury Dept issued bonds which the Fed bought. The Fed essentially bought all the debt, which of course monetizes it, and transfers that debt to us through the magic of inflation.:clap

I saw an article a few months ago which broke down the current national debt, in terms of how much is owned by whom. It said that the Federal Reserve currently owns 2/3 of the nations debt, while almost 1/3 is owned by the US citizens (taxpayers) and the rest is owned by foreigners (China). This means that 2/3 of our debt has been monetized by the Fed, and is now being loaned out to other countries in an attempt to get rid of it.

The main problem with the bailout scheme is it turns the financial markets upside down. Banks were failing, so they turn to the government. Government cannot create money out of nothing so they have to pass a spending bill which will "bail out" the banks (which had too many bad loans on their books, they could not take em off or they would go broke, savvy?)....so the gov then has to now borrow the money to bail out the banks,...who do they borrow from? The BANKS.

So the banks loan the money to the government to replace the bad loans they had to take off their books. It was actually a loan swap. But now the government had the money, they wanted to do something with it...thus comes the "Stimulus Package"...

Ok so, the problem is, you can't just force people to go into debt. You can't just hand out money and tell people they have to pay it back, it won't work. People have to be actually working and feel confident in the economy in order to go willingly into debt, but the very fact that the economy is in such bad shape (millions of jobs lost, millions of homes in foreclosure), means there are less people to borrow money.

So the stimulus money is really an illusion. A massive gamble that the economy is going to not only rebound, but when it comes back it will be even stronger than ever--and be able to endure both the massive debt they've piled onto it in the last couple years, but the interest on all the debt, plus the fact the baby boomers are all going to be retiring soon and want their social security checks....PLUS, the massive inflation that is already starting to flood the world with these new trillions of dollars nobody wants.:thud:

Yeah, the next few years are gonna be fun! Maybe the mayans were right about 2012!!!

 

[dust1n]

Well just to be picky, 1 Representative and 1 Senator

Actually make that two Senators since it's Ron Paul's Bill IIRC.

Yeah, Congress is going crazy over this issue.

 

[Mathematician]

Actually, the Fed prints all the money. Congress can't print anything.

The Fed doesn't print money, though. The Treasury does, of which the Fed is not a subsidiary. For the Fed to process securities it needs to have the consent of the Treasury. The most the Fed can do is offer funds at discounted borrowing rates, which has to be repaid. Yeah, banks are virtually repaying themselves - but that's how the Fed system has worked for almost a hundred years now. It was crafted in such a way to make sure banks are self-interested in the Fed's success.

I'm just skeptical that the Fed Reserve has loaned out/sold $3.8 trillion in secrecy.