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Foreign Banks Tapped Fed's Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret

Erod

Erod

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Foreign Banks Tapped Fed's Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret - Bloomberg

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as much as $33.5 billion through its New York branch from the Fed’s “discount window” lending program, according to Fed documents released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Dublin-based Depfa Bank Plc, taken over in 2007 by a German real-estate lender later seized by the German government, drew $24.5 billion.

The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record. The disclosures may stoke a reexamination of the risks posed to U.S. taxpayers by the central bank’s role in global financial markets.
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I thought the stimulus was about creating jobs and pumping money into the economy. Not only did I not agree with that to begin with, but it turns out that's not where the money went at all.

Obama gave it to GE and the banks, including several FOREIGN banks.
 
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This whole banking-FED-bailout business is a total cluster-**** for the US, and consequently the American taxpayer.
 
Only the brainwashed/easily tricked didn't see what the bailout was. A giant rally to pay off the go-to guys then usurp control over whatever business they paid. The FEDs appeared to have used American taxpayers as one giant bribe.
 
dirtpoorchris said:
Only the brainwashed/easily tricked didn't see what the bailout was. A giant rally to pay off the go-to guys then usurp control over whatever business they paid. The FEDs appeared to have used American taxpayers as one giant bribe.
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If this money didn't go to stimulate our economy, what makes liberals think higher taxes will be applied to the national debt?
 
Erod said:
If this money didn't go to stimulate our economy, what makes liberals think higher taxes will be applied to the national debt?
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Wishing for liberals to spend money in the right places, is to wish for what never was and never will be.
 
Erod said:
Obama gave it to GE and the banks, including several FOREIGN banks.
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They all paid it back. What's the fuss?

The fed propping up he financial system during the meltdown is how we designed our system. Our out of control spending, debt, and entitlements, is not an issue with the fed.
 
Erod said:
This is astounding.

More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, mining, forestry, and utilities combined.

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com
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Not really.. the guy does "fuzzy" math.

For one, the US does not make "stuff" as it once use too. It started exporting those jobs decades ago. And those that do "make stuff, make the stuff with way less people because of automation. Plus it depends a lot on what the definition of "manufacturing" is. Because some numbers claim that the US manufacturing sector is over 10 million people... (14 million in 2004 according to What Accounts for the Decline in Manufacturing Employment?), and that alone is over double the amount of people in the federal government...and it has been declining for decades.

Secondly, farming and fishing in the US is mostly "industrial", as in less people make more. The classic family farm is no more (relatively) and the massive big farm is here to stay. And fishing boats are not exactly the row boats of the past any more.

Thirdly, mining is another industry that has gone technical, which means less people. Gone are the days of sending children into mines and welcome to the 20th/21st centuries of industrial mining.

Fourth.. forestry, again.. welcome to the 20th/21st century. It has also never really been a huge industry that demanded massive numbers of people.

And lastly "utilities". Again, another industry that does not require many people

Now if we look at "government".. then you 2.8 million in the federal administration, 182k in Homeland Security (http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09fedfun.pdf) , and 1.47 million in the US military (http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/ms0.pdf). That is about 4.5 million people.

Then you have to add the local government employees which according to http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09locus.txt is 11.1 million full time employees, and then state http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09stus.txt which is 3.8 million.

So the only way you can get to the number he claims, is if you add part-time employees as well.

Now the question is.. is 17 million employed by "government" too much? Considering it is on every freaking level of government, the US president down to street cleaners and garbage collectors across a country the size of the US with 300 million people.. then well...
 
Erod said:
This is astounding.

More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, mining, forestry, and utilities combined.

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com
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If one references the latest employment data (released earlier today), specifically Table B-1, one finds that Mr. Moore's analogy does not accurately represent the American employment situation. In March 2011 (latest data), there were 107.360 million persons employed by the private sector. In contrast, there were 22.547 million persons employed at all levels of government. Put another way, the private sector accounted for 82.6% of all non-farm employees and there were nearly 4.8 private sector employees for every public sector employee.
 
The money given to GE was not a bribe but payment for services.

You will remember that NBC and MSNBC were in the Obama camp solidly going all the way back to the beginning the campaign.

NBC is 49% owned by GE.
 
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dirtpoorchris said:
Only the brainwashed/easily tricked didn't see what the bailout was. A giant rally to pay off the go-to guys then usurp control over whatever business they paid. The FEDs appeared to have used American taxpayers as one giant bribe.
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to what end?
 
Erod said:
I thought the stimulus was about creating jobs and pumping money into the economy. Not only did I not agree with that to begin with, but it turns out that's not where the money went at all.

Obama gave it to GE and the banks, including several FOREIGN banks.
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One has to be careful to distinguish between the Fed's extraordinary actions (a whole range of facilities that were set up), TARP, and the two stimulus packages that were adopted by the Obama Administration, with the most recent one being agreed late last year. The Fed's Commercial Paper facility was not part of the stimulus package. It was one of the steps the Fed was empowered under its own emergency authority to take.

Considering the global nature of finance and the United States' role as a money center, the fact that foreign institutions also tapped into the emergency facilities is not surprising. Arguably, had the facilities been restricted to U.S. institutions, various foreign institutions might well have collapsed, and then the resulting contagion might have toppled the U.S. institutions despite their having access to the facilities.
 
overlooked so far in this discussion, somewhat surprisingly, is the saliant issue raised by bloomberg in its first two paragraphs---the two years of STONEWALLING of FOIA by bernanke and the feds

why all the secrecy, ben?
 
The Prof said:
overlooked so far in this discussion, somewhat surprisingly, is the saliant issue raised by bloomberg in its first two paragraphs---the two years of STONEWALLING of FOIA by bernanke and the feds

why all the secrecy, ben?
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He gave his view on this issue a number of times during the financial crisis. For example, Bloomberg.com reported on November 18, 2008:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank won't disclose details of the $2 trillion in emergency loans of taxpayer funds because doing so would stigmatize banks needing the money...

"There is a concern that if the name is put in the newspaper that such-and-such bank came to the Fed to borrow overnight for a perfectly good reason, that others might begin to worry is this bank creditworthy and that might create a stigma, a problem, and might cause banks to be unwilling to borrow, and that would be counterproductive.''
 
nov 30, 2010

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected Wednesday to release data on financial institutions and foreign central banks to which it made more than $2 trillion in emergency loans during the financial crisis, according to a U.S. senator who has long been pushing the Fed to be more transparent in its actions.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I., Vt.) plans to hold a conference call with the media Wednesday afternoon to discuss the data.

Sanders pushed for inclusion in financial overhaul legislation, approved by the Congress earlier this year, of a provision that forces the Fed to disclose the name of every company and foreign central bank that received aid from the Fed since late 2007. The Fed also must disclose the amount of assistance each entity received and disclose the terms under which funds were disbursed.

When the Senate adopted Sanders’ amendment to financial overhaul legislation, he said he hoped it would lift a “veil of secrecy” that surrounds the Fed.

The Fed is required to make the disclosure by Wednesday.
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Fed to Release Emergency Lending Details, Sanders Says - Real Time Economics - WSJ
 
Barbbtx said:
This is absolutely going to be our downfall if we don't stop it. We need to start shrinking government yesterday!
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Hey, don't forget those who do not work. They work for the govt too. :lamo
 
Councilman said:
The money given to GE was not a bribe but payment for services.

You will remember that NBC and MSNBC were in the Obama camp solidly going all the way back to the beginning the campaign.

NBC is 49% owned by GE.
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Bernanke get a handjob?
 
PeteEU said:
Not really.. the guy does "fuzzy" math.

For one, the US does not make "stuff" as it once use too. It started exporting those jobs decades ago. And those that do "make stuff, make the stuff with way less people because of automation.
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So we need 3 times as many government employees for fewer workers than 50-years ago, and that with computer technology?

Perhaps in a Communist country.

.
 
Libya-Owned Bank Got 73 Loans From Fed Discount Window After Lehman Fell - Bloomberg

senator sanders reacts:

“It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya,” Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, wrote in a letter to Fed and U.S. officials.
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why all the secrecy, mr bernanke?
 
What happens to any entity that doesn't have the means to pay it back? What happens if any entity knows its going to fail and sought a FED route and failed? Didn't the decision maker on the non-FED end trade money for something really huge if it failed on purpose?

Is watering down the American Peoples money on many fronts and relocating it not a form of taxation?

Now that this has been made a pathway for future actions (maybe) what happens if they try again and fail?
 
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