http://www.thenewamerican.com/econom...ts-of-interest
During a 2½ year period starting at the end of 2007, the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in secret bailouts to banks and other companies around the world, according to a government audit of some of the U.S. central bank’s operations. Much of the Fed's largesse was lavished on banks in Europe (such as Barclays, left) and Asia, the audit revealed. More than $3 trillion, for example, went to financial institutions in just five European countries. Trillions more flowed toward some of the biggest banks in America. Institutions from Brazil and Mexico to South Korea and Canada also benefited.
The 266-page report, produced by Congress’s non-partisan investigative service known as the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has already sparked intense outrage since its release on July 21. Fed apologists, however, have been quick to defend the actions, saying they were “necessary” to “save” the economy and justified under the Federal Reserve Act.
“The scale and nature of this assistance amounted to an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve System’s traditional role as lender-of-last-resort to depository institutions,” the report stated.
Beyond the secret bailouts — to put the figure in perspective, consider that the output of the entire U.S. economy last year was well under $15 trillion — problems with conflicts of interest and no-bid contracts also featured prominently in the audit report.
One example highlighted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I - Vt.) was the CEO of JP Morgan Chase serving on the board of the New York Fed even as his firm scooped up almost $500 billion from the central bank. The bank was simultaneously helping to administer the Fed’s secret bailouts.
But JP Morgan Chase was hardly the only example. According to the analysis, more than 80 percent of the Fed’s largest contracts to manage the programs were awarded without bidding.
Many of the companies that received the contracts were also being showered with central-bank bailouts at the same time. And more than a few insiders were granted “waivers” to hold investments in companies that were being rescued by the Fed.
"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," Sen. Sanders, a self-described socialist, said in a statement about the report. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
The congressional investigation was triggered as part of the financial “reform” bill passed last year despite strong Fed opposition. After the original “audit the Fed” bill by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) passed in the House and became extraordinarily popular with Americans, Sen. Sanders helped ensure that only a watered-down version made it out of the Senate.
But even with what is known so far, critics are on the attack. Another report about the Fed is also due to be released in October of this year. And in recent months, other previously secret information about the Fed and its operations has come out following years of litigation.
All of the disclosures have fueled a growing anti-Fed movement aiming to eventually abolish the central bank - essentially a sort of banking cartel with private shareholders but some veneer of government oversight. Sen. Sanders suggested in his public statement, however, that the institution should merely be “reformed” to serve "working families" and not just Wall Street CEOs.
"No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," he noted in the statement, perhaps not realizing that the Fed, by its own admission, is not an agency of the government. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed."
The biggest single beneficiary of the Fed’s bailouts was Citigroup, which received about $2.5 trillion in assistance. Several other top banks in the United States, including Bank of America and Morgan Stanley also benefited to the tune of trillions of dollars. British bank Barclays PLC took close to $1 trillion.
The GAO report suggested that the Fed should implement better policies to deal with conflicts of interest. Its policies on awarding contracts, record keeping and risk management should also be revised, the agency recommended.
The Fed’s chief lawyer responded by saying that the central bank would “strongly consider” the advice. But for now — following bailouts to a bank owned by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, blatant and widespread market manipulation, wild money printing, and secret bailouts larger than the U.S. economy — analysts expect outrage to continue growing.
---------- Post added at 01:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 AM ----------
The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year.Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke (pictured to the left), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve s nearly 100 year historywere posted on Senator Sander s webpage earlier this morning. What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks
everywhere from France to Scotland.From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.
To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is only $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is only $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.
In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.
This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else. Bernie Sanders(I-VT)
When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.
Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and supercorporations like Halloween candy.If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses can be stopped with five dollars worth of bullets.
[Regardless of whether this money is fiat money (money printed with nothing of value to back it), if it is a currency forced on society and the world, with enforcement by the Fed, IRS, the U.S. military, et al, --which it is-- the acts of the Federal Reserve are, in essence, the transfer of greater wealth to the rich insider banks and corporations, while the rest of the world grows poorer, and as the value of this funny money grows less and less in purchasing power. These insider banks, etc., then, exchange this funny money for gold and silver, the real wealth of the world, which, then, reinflates the world with more and more devaluing federal reserve notes. This, then, creates hyper-inflation, increasing the cost of all resources and commodities, while gold and silver climb to never-seen-before levels of value.
This is how the Federal Reserve insiders steal the wealth of the world and why the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. It's the world's largest Ponzi scheme! The Federal Reserve is nothing but a front for a small group of families who run a very large and successful white collar criminal Ponzi scheme. This criminal institution should be seized by the U.S. Treasury department and all assets frozen, and returned to the coffers of the U.S. Treasury in order to settle the U.S. debt and help begin to balance the U.S. deficit. All banks (listed below) should be forced to return the money received by the Federal Reserve. All families in ownership of the Fed and their agents should be located, caught, tried and jailed for grand larceny and treason against the people of the U.S.A. All government agents who protect and help facilitate this criminal organization should be fired from the positions and similarly tried and jailed for grand larceny and treason.
Meanwhile, Congress should return our country to its original monetary system (Lincoln greenbacks backed by precious metals) and, again, do its duty to regulate the coining of the currency of America as per the U.S. Constitution.]
The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131of the GAO Audit and are as follows..
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs:$814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK):$541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom):$181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
During a 2½ year period starting at the end of 2007, the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in secret bailouts to banks and other companies around the world, according to a government audit of some of the U.S. central bank’s operations. Much of the Fed's largesse was lavished on banks in Europe (such as Barclays, left) and Asia, the audit revealed. More than $3 trillion, for example, went to financial institutions in just five European countries. Trillions more flowed toward some of the biggest banks in America. Institutions from Brazil and Mexico to South Korea and Canada also benefited.
The 266-page report, produced by Congress’s non-partisan investigative service known as the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has already sparked intense outrage since its release on July 21. Fed apologists, however, have been quick to defend the actions, saying they were “necessary” to “save” the economy and justified under the Federal Reserve Act.
“The scale and nature of this assistance amounted to an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve System’s traditional role as lender-of-last-resort to depository institutions,” the report stated.
Beyond the secret bailouts — to put the figure in perspective, consider that the output of the entire U.S. economy last year was well under $15 trillion — problems with conflicts of interest and no-bid contracts also featured prominently in the audit report.
One example highlighted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I - Vt.) was the CEO of JP Morgan Chase serving on the board of the New York Fed even as his firm scooped up almost $500 billion from the central bank. The bank was simultaneously helping to administer the Fed’s secret bailouts.
But JP Morgan Chase was hardly the only example. According to the analysis, more than 80 percent of the Fed’s largest contracts to manage the programs were awarded without bidding.
Many of the companies that received the contracts were also being showered with central-bank bailouts at the same time. And more than a few insiders were granted “waivers” to hold investments in companies that were being rescued by the Fed.
"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," Sen. Sanders, a self-described socialist, said in a statement about the report. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
The congressional investigation was triggered as part of the financial “reform” bill passed last year despite strong Fed opposition. After the original “audit the Fed” bill by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) passed in the House and became extraordinarily popular with Americans, Sen. Sanders helped ensure that only a watered-down version made it out of the Senate.
But even with what is known so far, critics are on the attack. Another report about the Fed is also due to be released in October of this year. And in recent months, other previously secret information about the Fed and its operations has come out following years of litigation.
All of the disclosures have fueled a growing anti-Fed movement aiming to eventually abolish the central bank - essentially a sort of banking cartel with private shareholders but some veneer of government oversight. Sen. Sanders suggested in his public statement, however, that the institution should merely be “reformed” to serve "working families" and not just Wall Street CEOs.
"No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," he noted in the statement, perhaps not realizing that the Fed, by its own admission, is not an agency of the government. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed."
The biggest single beneficiary of the Fed’s bailouts was Citigroup, which received about $2.5 trillion in assistance. Several other top banks in the United States, including Bank of America and Morgan Stanley also benefited to the tune of trillions of dollars. British bank Barclays PLC took close to $1 trillion.
The GAO report suggested that the Fed should implement better policies to deal with conflicts of interest. Its policies on awarding contracts, record keeping and risk management should also be revised, the agency recommended.
The Fed’s chief lawyer responded by saying that the central bank would “strongly consider” the advice. But for now — following bailouts to a bank owned by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, blatant and widespread market manipulation, wild money printing, and secret bailouts larger than the U.S. economy — analysts expect outrage to continue growing.
---------- Post added at 01:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 AM ----------
The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year.Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke (pictured to the left), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve s nearly 100 year historywere posted on Senator Sander s webpage earlier this morning. What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks
everywhere from France to Scotland.From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.
To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is only $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is only $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.
In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.
This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else. Bernie Sanders(I-VT)
When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.
Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and supercorporations like Halloween candy.If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses can be stopped with five dollars worth of bullets.
[Regardless of whether this money is fiat money (money printed with nothing of value to back it), if it is a currency forced on society and the world, with enforcement by the Fed, IRS, the U.S. military, et al, --which it is-- the acts of the Federal Reserve are, in essence, the transfer of greater wealth to the rich insider banks and corporations, while the rest of the world grows poorer, and as the value of this funny money grows less and less in purchasing power. These insider banks, etc., then, exchange this funny money for gold and silver, the real wealth of the world, which, then, reinflates the world with more and more devaluing federal reserve notes. This, then, creates hyper-inflation, increasing the cost of all resources and commodities, while gold and silver climb to never-seen-before levels of value.
This is how the Federal Reserve insiders steal the wealth of the world and why the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. It's the world's largest Ponzi scheme! The Federal Reserve is nothing but a front for a small group of families who run a very large and successful white collar criminal Ponzi scheme. This criminal institution should be seized by the U.S. Treasury department and all assets frozen, and returned to the coffers of the U.S. Treasury in order to settle the U.S. debt and help begin to balance the U.S. deficit. All banks (listed below) should be forced to return the money received by the Federal Reserve. All families in ownership of the Fed and their agents should be located, caught, tried and jailed for grand larceny and treason against the people of the U.S.A. All government agents who protect and help facilitate this criminal organization should be fired from the positions and similarly tried and jailed for grand larceny and treason.
Meanwhile, Congress should return our country to its original monetary system (Lincoln greenbacks backed by precious metals) and, again, do its duty to regulate the coining of the currency of America as per the U.S. Constitution.]
The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131of the GAO Audit and are as follows..
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs:$814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK):$541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom):$181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
