Michael Scherer's Swampland post The Silent Change to Section 382 addresses only a small part of the secret billion dollar spending sprees. Bloomberg News is filing a lawsuit to force the Federal Reserve to release details on the nearly 2 trillion dollars in emergency loans it has given to unknown financial institutions:
Members of Congress, taxpayers and investors urged the Federal Reserve to provide details of almost $2 trillion in emergency loans and the collateral it has accepted to protect against losses... Bloomberg News has sought records of the Fed lending under the U.S Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure... In a separate FOIA request, Bloomberg asked for details of the collateral the Fed accepted against a $29 billion loan to facilitate the merger between JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. to prevent the investment bank's collapse. The bank rejected that request in a letter dated Nov. 7.
We're talking about trillions of dollars. I'm not an economist and I have no idea how much of this is necessary, and what kind of collateral is appropriate in this situation. But do the Feds know any better? Their actions have contributed to the economic collapse, and now they're asking for carte blanche in cleaning up the mess.
2 comments:
Is Joe Klein back to his customary (and comfortable) stance as "the Dave Broder of the sensible slightly left of center"?
I think he is.
And now that the election is over, is "Give 'em Hell" Harry Reid back to "I'm a Corporate Warmonger and Whore" Harry?
I think he is.
Of course, I'm just one of them angry Leftists, so who cares.
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But think of diverting a penny of what's being handed to the banks over to the manufacturing sector and watch Senate Republicans suddenly remember where they left their spines.
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