federal reserve

Students Get Into the Act - Want Fed to Not Give $$$ to Predatory Lenders

Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. What can I say. Students don't want the Treasury to give even more money to predatory student lenders. Imagine that.

Considering how the Treasury and the Fed already gave to every other predatory lender out there, especially the credit card companies, why should this be any different?

Federal Reserve Commits another $800 Billion

It's pouring money. Today the Federal Reserve committed $800 Billion more:

The Federal Reserve took two new steps to unfreeze credit for homebuyers, consumers and small businesses, committing up to $800 billion.

The central bank will purchase as much as $600 billion in debt issued or backed by government-chartered housing-finance companies. It will also set up a program of $200 billion to support consumer and small-business loans, the Fed said in statements today in Washington.

$200B is partially aimed at credit card debt. They want consumers to use more credit cards.

Great! Nothing on predatory lending, excessive fees...
yet another $800 Billion, just like that.

Federal Reserve Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion

Is that title unbelievable? Does it make your eyes pop out?

It's not fiction, it's true.

Bloomberg notes:

The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

So to whom is all of that money going? The Federal Reserve still won't tell!

They have already given $2.8 trillion dollars.

This blog title Shock and Awe took the words right out of my mouth on how incredible this is.

This is taxpayer money!

Fed Refuses to Tell Who They Gave $2 Trillion Dollars To

Transparency? What transparency?

Bloomberg is now working on a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) just to find out who are the recipients of $2 trillion in taxypayer money.


Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose
:

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

Fed Floods Financials With Dollars

Fed Releases Flood of U.S. Dollars:

The Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood the financial system with as many dollars as banks want, backing up government efforts to revive confidence and helping to reduce money-market rates.

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank will offer European banks unlimited dollar funds with maturities of seven, 28 and 84 days at fixed interest rates against ``appropriate collateral,'' the Washington-based Fed said today. The Fed had capped at $380 billion the currency it would swap with the three central banks.

limitless dollars:

Fed to lend directly to companies

This may be the biggest economic development since the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frantically trying to stop the bleeding on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve took a first-time step Tuesday to get cash directly to businesses and hinted that interest rates could come down soon. Stocks continued their free fall anyway and hit new five-year lows.

The central bank invoked emergency powers to lend money to companies outside the financial sector and buy up mounds of commercial paper, the short-term debt that firms use to pay for everyday expenses like salaries and supplies.
...
To that end, the Fed announced it would begin buying companies' short-term debt. The powers were bestowed during the Depression as part of the Federal Reserve Act.

The Fed Turns on the Spigot

This is unprecedented. Maybe I should have waited another day to post this diary. Look at this.

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks to $620 billion from $290 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand to $450 billion from $150 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

How to Add $900 BIllion In Record Time to the Deficit? - Bailout Wall Street

Government bailout tally tops $900 billion according to Reuters.

They tally it up and it ain't pretty.

  • $200B - Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac
  • $300B - FHA
  • $4B - local community grants
  • $85B - AIG (loan)
  • $87B - JP Morgan for refinancing
  • $29B - Bear Sterns
  • $200B - outstanding loans

What does this imply just saddling the deficit in such rapid succession when the United States already is running on fumes due to bad policy and a absurdly expensive war?

Here's a laugh, just a couple of months ago the CBO was horrifying people that the bail out would cost $25B and they even claimed there was a 50% change that money would not be needed.

Gun Fight at OK Corral - Former Bank of England Policy Maker Slams Fed in Jackson Hole meeting

There is a Federal Reserve symposium in Jackson Hole and one, slammed the Fed.

The Fed listens to Wall Street and believes what it hears,'' Buiter said yesterday in a paper presented to the Fed's conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. ``This distortion into a partial and often highly distorted perception of reality is unhealthy and dangerous.

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