What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.
I understand the importance of the new WikiLeaks documents. However, we must not let them distract us from the new information the Federal Reserve was forced to release. Even if WikiLeaks reveals documents from inside a large American bank, as huge as that could be, it will most likely pale in comparison to what we just found out from the one-time peek we got into the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve. This is the Wall Street equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.
I’ve written many reports detailing the crimes of Wall Street during this crisis. The level of fraud, from top to bottom, has been staggering. The lack of accountability and the complete disregard for the rule of law have made me and many of my colleagues extremely cynical and jaded when it comes to new evidence to pile on top of the mountain that we have already gathered. But we must not let our cynicism cloud our vision on the details within this new information.
Just when I thought the banksters couldn’t possibly shock me anymore… they did.
We were finally granted the honor and privilege of finding out the specifics, a limited one-time Federal Reserve view, of a secret taxpayer funded “backdoor bailout” by a small group of unelected bankers. This data release reveals “emergency lending programs” that doled out $12.3 TRILLION in taxpayer money – $3.3 trillion in liquidity, $9 trillion in “other financial arrangements.”
Wait, what? Did you say $12.3 TRILLION tax dollars were thrown around in secrecy by unelected bankers… and Congress didn’t know any of the details?
Yes. The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves. The original copy of the Constitution spontaneously burst into flames. The ghost of Tom Paine went running, stark raving mad screaming through the halls of Congress.
The Federal Reserve was secretly throwing around our money in unprecedented fashion, and it wasn’t just to the usual suspects like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, etc.; it was to the entire Global Banking Cartel. To central banks throughout the world: Australia, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, England… To the Fed’s foreign primary dealers like Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Royal Bank of Scotland (U.K.), Barclays (U.K.), BNP Paribas (France)… All their Ponzi players were “gifted.” All the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations got their cut.
Talk about the ransacking and burning of Rome! Sayonara American middle class…
If you still had any question as to whether or not the United States is now the world’s preeminent banana republic, the final verdict was just delivered and the decision was unanimous. The ayes have it.
Any fairytale notions that we are living in a nation built on the rule of law and of the global economy being based on free market principles has now been exposed as just that, a fairytale. This moment is equivalent to everyone in Vatican City being told, by the Pope, that God is dead.
I’ve been arguing for years that the market is rigged and that the major Wall Street firms are elaborate Ponzi schemes, as have many other people who built their beliefs on rational thought, reasoned logic and evidence. We already came to this conclusion by doing the research and connecting the dots. But now, even our strongest skeptics and the most ardent Wall Street supporters have it all laid out in front of them, on FEDERAL RESERVE SPREADSHEETS.
Even the Financial Times, which named Lloyd Blankfein its 2009 person of the year, reacted by reporting this: “The initial reactions were shock at the breadth of lending, particularly to foreign firms. But the details paint a bleaker and even more disturbing picture.”
Yes, the emperor doesn’t have any clothes. God is, indeed, dead. But, for the moment at least, the illusion continues to hold power. How is this possible?
To start with, as always, the US television “news” media (propaganda) networks just glossed over the whole thing – nothing to see here, just move along, back after a message from our sponsors… Other than that obvious reason, I’ve come to the realization that the Federal Reserve’s crimes are so big, so huge in scale, it is very hard for people to even wrap their head around it and comprehend what has happened here.
Think about it. In just this one peek we got at its operations, we learned that the Fed doled out $12.3 trillion in near-zero interest loans, without Congressional input.
The audacity and absurdity of it all is mind boggling…
Based on many conversations I’ve had with people, it seems that the average person doesn’t comprehend how much a trillion dollars is, let alone 12.3 trillion. You might as well just say 12.3 gazillion, because people don’t grasp a number that large, nor do they understand what would be possible if that money was used in other ways.
Can you imagine what we could do to restructure society with $12.3 trillion? Think about that…
People also can’t grasp the colossal crime committed because they keep hearing the word “loans.” People think of the loans they get. You borrow money, you pay it back with interest, no big deal.
That’s not what happened here. The Fed doled out $12.3 trillion in near-zero interest loans, using the American people as collateral, demanding nothing in return, other than a bunch of toxic assets in some cases. They only gave this money to a select group of insiders, at a time when very few had any money because all these same insiders and speculators crashed the system.
Do you get that? The very people most responsible for crashing the system, were then rewarded with trillions of our dollars. This gave that select group of insiders unlimited power to seize control of assets and have unprecedented leverage over almost everything within their economies – crony capitalism on steroids.
This was a hostile world takeover orchestrated through economic attacks by a very small group of unelected global bankers. They paralyzed the system, then were given the power to recreate it according to their own desires. No free market, no democracy of any kind. All done in secrecy. In the process, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses and impoverished tens of millions of people – they have put into motion a system that will inevitably collapse again and utterly destroy the very existence of what is left of an economic middle class.
That is not hyperbole. That is what happened.
We are talking about trillions of dollars secretly pumped into global banks, handpicked by a small select group of bankers themselves. All for the benefit of those bankers, and at the expense of everyone else. People can’t even comprehend what that means and the severe consequences that it entails, which we have only just begun to experience.
Let me sum it up for you: The American Dream is O-V-E-R.
Welcome to the neo-feudal-fascist state.
People throughout the world who keep using the dollar are either A) Part of the scam; B) Oblivious to reality; C) Believe that US military power will be able to maintain the value of an otherwise worthless currency; D) All of the above.
No matter which way you look at it, we are all in serious trouble!
If you are an elected official, (I know at least 17 of you subscribe to my newsletter) and you believe in the oath you took upon taking office, you must immediately demand a full audit of the Federal Reserve and have Ben Bernanke and the entire Federal Reserve Board detained. If you are not going to do that, you deserve to have the words “Irrelevant Puppet” tattooed across your forehead.
Yes, those are obviously strong words, but they are the truth.
The Global Banking Cartel has now been so blatantly exposed, you cannot possibly get away with pretending that we live in a nation of law based on the Constitution. The jig is up.
It’s been over two years now; does anyone still seriously not understand why we are in this crisis? Our economy has been looted and burnt to the ground due to the strategic, deliberate decisions made by a small group of unelected global bankers at the Federal Reserve. Do people really not get the connection here? I mean, H.E.L.L.O. Our country is run by an unelected Global Banking Cartel.
I am constantly haunted by a quote from Harry Overstreet, who wrote the following in his 1925 groundbreaking study Influencing Human Behavior: “Giving people the facts as a strategy of influence” has been a failure, “an enterprise fraught with a surprising amount of disappointment.”
This crisis overwhelmingly proves Overstreet’s thesis to be true. Nonetheless, we solider on…
Here’s a roundup of reports on this BernankeLeaks:
Prepare to enter the theater of the absurd…
I’ll start with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). He was the senator who Bernanke blew off when he was asked for information on this heist during a congressional hearing. Sanders fought to get the amendment written into the financial “reform” bill that gave us this one-time peek into the Fed’s secret operations. (Remember, remember the 6th of May, HFT, flash crash and terrorism. “Hey, David, Homeland Security is on the phone! They want to ask you questions about some NYSE SLP program.”)
In an article entitled, “A Real Jaw-Dropper at the Federal Reserve,” Senator Sanders reveals some of the details:
At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later… we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed…
After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America….
We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout… turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country.…
Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks — Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse — which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities….
Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?… [read Global Banking Cartel]
What this disclosure tells us, among many other things, is that despite this huge taxpayer bailout, the Fed did not make the appropriate demands on these institutions necessary to rebuild our economy and protect the needs of ordinary Americans….
What we are seeing is the incredible power of a small number of people who have incredible conflicts of interest getting incredible help from the taxpayers of this country while ignoring the needs of the people. [read more]
In an article entitled, “The Fed Lied About Wall Street,” Zach Carter sums it up this way:
The Federal Reserve audit is full of frightening revelations about U.S. economic policy and those who implement it… By denying the solvency crisis, major bank executives who had run their companies into the ground were allowed to keep their jobs, and shareholders who had placed bad bets on their firms were allowed to collect government largesse, as bloated bonuses began paying out soon after.
But the banks themselves still faced a capital shortage, and were only kept above those critical capital thresholds because federal regulators were willing to look the other way, letting banks account for obvious losses as if they were profitable assets.
So based on the Fed audit data, it’s hard to conclude that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was telling the truth when he told Congress on March 3, 2009, that there were no zombie banks in the United States.
“I don’t think that any major U.S. bank is currently a zombie institution,” Bernanke said.
As Bernanke spoke those words banks had been pledging junk bonds as collateral under Fed facilities for several months…
This is the heart of today’s foreclosure fraud crisis. Banks are foreclosing on untold numbers of families who have never missed a payment, because rushing to foreclosure generates lucrative fees for the banks, whatever the costs to families and investors. This is, in fact, far worse than what Paul Krugman predicted. Not only are zombie banks failing to support the economy, they are actively sabotaging it with fraud in order to make up for their capital shortages. Meanwhile, regulators are aggressively looking the other way.
The Fed had to fix liquidity in 2008. That was its job. But as major banks went insolvent, the Fed and Treasury had a responsibility to fix that solvency issue—even though that meant requiring shareholders and executives to live up to losses. Instead, as the Fed audit tells us, policymakers knowingly ignored the real problem, pushing losses onto the American middle class in the process.” [read more]
Even the Financial Times is jumping ship:
Sunlight Shows Cracks in Fed’s Rescue Story
It took two years, a hard-fought lawsuit, and an act of Congress, but finally… the Federal Reserve disclosed the details of its financial crisis lending programs. The initial reactions were shock at the breadth of lending, particularly to foreign firms. But the details paint a bleaker, earlier, and even more disturbing picture…. An even more troubling conclusion from the data is that… it is now apparent that the Fed took on far more risk, on less favorable terms, than most people have realized. [read more]
In true Fed fashion, they didn’t even fully comply with Congress. In a report entitled, “Fed Withholds Collateral Data for $885 Billion in Financial-Crisis Loans,” Bloomberg puts some icing on the cake:
For three of the Fed’s six emergency facilities, the central bank released information on groups of collateral it accepted by asset type and rating, without specifying individual securities. Among them was the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, created in March 2008 to provide loans to brokers as Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
“This is a half-step,” said former Atlanta Fed research director Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. “If you were going to audit the facilities, then would this enable you to do an audit? The answer is ‘No,’ you would have to go in and look at the individual amounts of collateral and how it was broken down to do that. And that is the spirit of what the requirements were in Dodd-Frank.” [read more]
See also:
Here’s the only person on US TV “news” who actually covers and understands any of this, enter Dylan Ratigan, with his guest Chris Whalen from Institutional Risk Analytics. This quote from Whalen sums it up well: “The folks at the Fed have become so corrupt, so captured by the banking industry… the Fed is there to support the speculators and they let the real economy go to hell.”
The Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild has a good quote: “The financial bailout was a giant boondoggle, undemocratic and kleptocratic to its core.”
Matt Stoller on NewDeal 2.0:
End This Fed
The Fed, and specifically the people who run it, are responsible for declining wages, for de-industrialization, for bubbles, and for the systemic corruption of American capital markets. The new financial blogosphere destroyed the Fed’s mythic stature…. With a loss of legitimacy comes a lack of public trust and a vulnerability to any form of critic. The Fed is now less respected than the IRS…. Liberals should stop their love affair with conservative technocratic myths of monetary independence, and cease seeing this Federal Reserve as a legitimate actor. At the very least, we need to begin noticing that these people do in fact run the country, and should not. [read more]
In case anyone is confused into believing that this is just another right vs. left partisan issue, enter Fox Business host Judge Andrew Napolitano with his guest Republican Congressman Ron Paul, who is, of course, a longtime leading Fed critic. Paul hopes to see some Wikileaks on the Federal Reserve:
The Sunlight Foundation shines a light on Bank of America and the Federal Reserve’s brother money manager BlackRock:
Federal Reserve Loan Program Allowed Bank of America to Benefit Twice
Bank of America was one of several banks that was able to play both sides of a Federal Reserve program launched during the 2008 financial crisis. While Bank of America was selling its assets to firms obtaining loans through the Fed program, the investment firm BlackRock—partially owned by Bank of America—was potentially turning a profit by using those loans to buy assets similar to those sold by Bank of America. [read more]
Gretchen Morgenson at the New York Times jumps into the act:
So That’s Where the Money Went
How the truth shines through when you shed a little light on a subject….
All of the emergency lending data released by the Fed are highly revealing, but why weren’t they made public much earlier? That’s a question that Walker F. Todd, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, is asking.
Mr. Todd, a former assistant general counsel and research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said details about the Fed’s vast and various programs should have been available before the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law was even written.
“The Fed’s current set of powers and the shape of the Dodd-Frank bill over all might have looked quite different if this information had been made public during the debate on the bill,” he said. “Had these tables been out there, I think Congress would have either said no to emergency lending authority or if you get it, it’s going to be a much lower number — half a trillion dollars in the aggregate.” [read more]
Welcome to the “global pawnshop:”
The Fed Operates as a “global pawnshop:” $9 trillion to 18 financial institutions
What the report shows is that the Fed operated as a global pawnshop taking in practically anything the banks had for collateral. What is even more disturbing is that the Federal Reserve did not enact any punitive charges to these borrowers so you had banks like Goldman Sachs utilizing the crisis to siphon off cheap collateral. The Fed is quick to point out that “taxpayers were fully protected” but mention little of the destruction they have caused to the US dollar. This is a hidden cost to Americans and it also didn’t help that they were the fuel that set off the biggest global housing bubble ever witnessed by humanity. [read more]
“No strings attached.” Financial reporter Barry Grey unleashes the truth:
Fed report lifts lid on Great Bank Heist of 2008-2009
The banks and corporations that benefited were not even obliged to provide an account of what they did with the money. The entire purpose of the operation was to use public funds to cover the gambling losses of the American financial aristocracy, and create the conditions for the financiers and speculators to make even more money.
All of the 21,000 transactions cited in the Fed documents―released under a provision included, over the Fed’s objections, in this year’s financial regulatory overhaul bill―were carried out in secret. The unelected central bank operated without any congressional mandate or oversight.
The documents shed light on the greatest plundering of social resources in history. It was carried out under both the Republican Bush and Democratic Obama administrations. Those who organized the looting of the public treasury were long-time Wall Street insiders: men like Bush’s treasury secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson and the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner….
The Fed documents show that the US central bank enabled banks and corporations to offload their bad debts onto the Fed’s balance sheet. Now, in order to prevent a collapse of the dollar and a default by the US government, the American people are being told they must sacrifice to reduce the national debt and budget deficit.
But as the vast sums make clear, the “sacrifice” being demanded of working people means their impoverishment―wage-cutting, mass unemployment, cuts in health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
The very scale of the Fed bailout points to the scale of the financial crash and the criminality that fostered it…. The entire US capitalist economy rested on a huge Ponzi scheme that was bound to collapse…
The banks were able to take the cheap cash from the Fed and lend it back to the government at double and quadruple the interest rates they were initially charged―pocketing many billions in the process….
The ongoing saga of the looting of the economy by the financial elite puts the lie to the endless claims that “there is no money” for jobs, housing, education or health care. The ruling class is awash in money. [read more]
Here’s an old Jim Rogers interview from two years ago when this whole thing was originally going down:
Here are two videos that I made last year, with an assist from Alan Grayson and Dylan Ratigan:
The Wall Street Economic Death Squad – Part I
The Greatest Theft in History – Wall Street Economic Death Squad – Part II
And on a final note, you may as well rock out to this new song while Rome burns…
WORLD PREMIERE ~ Ben Bernanke: Public Enemy #1 – Mr. Big Shot (((Music Video)))
Ben Shalom Bernanke is wanted for violating the United States Constitution, committing acts of financial terrorism and crimes against humanity. As a leading member of the Global Banking Cartel, he is considered a highly dangerous enemy combatant. Citizens of the United States hereby demand that he be properly detained under the laws and customs of war.
David DeGraw, a regular contributor to The Public Record, is an investigative journalist whose work has been featured in numerous publications and websites. He is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com, editorial director of MediaChannel.org and author of The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States. To be notified via email about further articles from this series, subscribe here.
Thank you sire for a fantastic piece of journalism! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! My the new heroes!!! Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders (how’s that for bipartisanship!), Julian Assange (if the Dems grew a pair like his they might get something done), and now David DeGraw!
Tis a wonderful world after all. “Yes Virginia. There is a Santa Clause.”
You say our congress is not involved–but they are–they give the wink and nod approvals to the crap Bernanke pulls. Our congress is filled with IDIOTS ! This was not only the largest theft in the history of mankind, that occurred without a news headline, without a cop lifting an eyebrow, and without a government official losing a dime–It is still ongoing !! Now our Feds plan to bail out Ireland !!
We demand that American $ be loaned in America–an nowhere else !!
Madashellhomeowner.
Yes, an excellent article…
Find out who took those 500-plus Billion dollars out of the system,
those first few hours, the morning of the ‘crash’, and then
we will know who caused the problem to occur in the first place.
I’m sure someone with the knowledge could find that out.
It is all a total scam, right in our faces. Sort of like Chertoff in
charge of Homeland Security, and now raking in a fortune from
the programmed sale of Body Scanners to the airports, and
not the slightest thought of the double standard of profit. SICK!
These creatures have no conscience whatsoever.
This isn’t at all persuasive. You give no attention to the alternative – what if these actions hadn’t been taken? Everything is interconnected, the big banks and the middle classes, the dollar and the central banks of the major economies of the world. It is easy to realize the alternative – let the “zombie banks” die, let the shareholders realize their losses, etc. – would result in economic catastrophe. You would have the middle class have some sort of “purity” (ie, the financial system operates according to the standard you define as pure, rather than the actuality you define as corrupt) but they would not have jobs either in their small-to-mid size businesses, and those who work at the large businesses. It seems you are willfully blind to the actual crisis that was averted, focusing single-mindedly on 1. the comparatively moderate economic pain that has come about and 2. obsessively focused on what you see as “distasteful” actions which were taking. I also suspect you know there is an audience for this, and your journalistic standard, as with all journalists, is to generate visibility for your story. Regardless, you present a very narrow and unconvincing sequence of events that lacks the context needed to understand – vis-a-vis the severity of the crisis, were these actions appropriate?
Further, because everything is interconnected, there is never really a central source of power capable of implementing such a conspiracy. Your basic premise gets this wrong. At the heart of this, the Fed’s actions should be taken at face value: in the moment of emergency, with risk of systemic failure, the Fed took extraordinary actions to save the international economic system. Just over two years out, the economy has recovered to its previous high of domestic output. The Fed deserves recognition and understanding for its efforts.
This is the most important article on the financial crisis period. It needs to go viral. What we’ve known in general is proven in the particular in horrifying example after example. Thank you for this and please keep writing.
What to do? When the system is totally discredited, a system that relies on a foundation of trust, then you replace it. We need a national bank to take over the real debt, owed for products and services, a bank that will resume normal lending. We need a liquidation bank that will incorporate the vaporware financial structure and liquidate it, along with referrals for prosecution for participating in the scheme. A re-boot is our only choice.
@g50 At least 1 person reading this understands something about economic theory and practice. The rest of you are just a bunch of followers too eager to let your uneducated mind to be told what and how to think. Do yourselves a favor and take some international macroeconomics classes. Then spend some time reflecting on the actions of the Fed, and decide for yourself
Terrific article.
Yep, it turns out the dissidents were right, again.
News flash! The Fed Res. controls all the US banks, and lends them money with what? Answer, invented money from their account. That account is basically a computer that they can put any number in to make it appear they have money. Qualatative easing is “made up” money. They lend this made up money to our Federal Government – because the Gov. uses accounting methods and do have books. That part is constitutional. Then the Fed Res. get a small interest back to keep the interest rate artificially low. The President looks the other way. The Fed. is the only entity that abides by no accounting rules because they control everybody else. And Congress looks the other way. Notify your Congress person, let them know the truth – send them a copy of this and save our county NOW !!!! This stupidity will catch up to and destroy the US.
The real terrorist are here. The “war” is just a distraction wrapped in a jobs program.
We Do Not Have Our Representation As Mandated By The Constitution.One Representative For Every 20,000 Citizens . The American People Have No Government Steering Mechanism. That Would Be The Representational Branch Of Our Government. So The Will Of The Poeple Is Not Being Heard. This Is How The Federal Reserve Even Managed To be Instituted. And Now Is Not Answerable To The Meager Number Of Co-Opted Lobbied Congress People We Have..
The Federal Reserve is guilty of violating US money laundering laws. They launder their “made-up” money thru our banking and finacial systerms thus making it real money. Why is the FBI and our Congress ignoring the biggest rip off of the American People. Whose pockets are the Federal Reserve lining to buy them influence. They claim it’s borrowed money but when they erase their debt its as good as giving real money to them. Money is Power and right now the Federal Reserve has more Power than anyone else including our government. A government dependant on the Fed Res’s artificial low interest rate.
If our Representatives, President, and law enforcemnt won’t stop the Federal Reserve than the only recourse is to sue the Federal Reserve in our court system. The Judiciary Branch is the last hope. Is there a good lawyer out there somewhere who wants to help, and make a name for themselves in our history books. Here is an opportunity. Wacky Bernanke must be Stopped.
A public audit of the Federal Reserve Bank will result in its abolishment and would very likely be followed by multiple prosecutions by the Department of Justice. It would be a hard but necessary step to rectify our escalating debt.
I’d be very interested, David, in seeing your response to G50′s comments above.
US citizens, I feel sorry for you. From a standpoint of an foreigner, your country is ready to die. Actually, I’m sure it is taking it’s last breaths. Why? Look what You have done with your country. It was, not that long ago, the greatest country in the world. Look at it now. It has the lowest life standard of all developed countries, but you believe that you have the highest. It has no tolerance for personal freedoms, but you believe you are free. You are blaming all this on selected few, but you have selected them, ergo you are to blame. You are like spoiled brats living on the heritage of you fathers and grandfathers, who made your country great, and making sure that you trash that heritage as soon as possible. Only inertia is still keeping you on top. If you didn’t drag others with you down when you finally go, I would not share a tear for you when it happens.
One example of this: most of you are congratulating the author of the article. It is great, but what you should feel is outrage, demand explanation and investigation in this matter. Do you understand that with that money you could have rejuvenerated USA? Instead they gave your money to someone else so that they could… borrow it back to you? At interests? Without you consent or even notification? How braindead are you really? Sorry if anyone feels insulted.
Are north-americans waking up from its dream?
Lisa:
Actually the constitution says “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;”
I don’t think this is such a black and white situation as it may seem to people outside financial industry. Although I am not a US citizen and I don’t live in the US, I am a professional trader and as such am acquainted with most important financial events in the US economy and I follow all Bernanke’s public announcements. My interpretation of those announcements is a subjective one of course, but I believe that, at least judging by my trading results, I interpret the entire picture well enough. In short, my profession made me learn about fundamental forces that move the markets (i.e. have direct impact on currency valuation).
Let me explain why this 12.3 trillion loan is not such a bad thing for the US, at least from my point of view. Btw, I am not in any way defending a potentially immoral or unethical aspect of this financial deal, I am just trying to explain the financial impact.
Money is an instrument of debt and not an instrument of any kind of value. Having said that, the single most important criteria dictating the market direction of a currency is the market _perceived_ creditworthiness of the debtor in question. Given that the debtor in this case is this group of some of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, what this loan ironically did was to find a more diversified and potentially more credit worth debtor than the US government at least for the newly generated amount of 12.3 trillion (I know how this sounds, but if this weren’t true, the US national debt would’ve been long gone, right?). This has several impacts:
1: The market is most probably going to appreciate the value of USD for as long as the previous assumption prevails or even totally ignore this deal,
2: Bernanke succeeded in substantially incrementing the total amount of USD in circulation without generating significant inflation / devaluation side effects because he loaned this newly generated amount to those institutions,
3: Bernanke insured that in the near future there will be a demand for USD i.e. this loan can also be viewed as some sort of a trojan horse in terms of currencies (sooner or later those 12.3T will have to be paid back).
If, on the contrast, Bernanke had done what the American public has been expecting/hoping for i.e. something noble like using this or any similar amount of freshly generated money for a socially sensitive cause, in financial terms it would simply mean that the amount was generated for public consumption without a either a creditworth debtor or debt collateral behind it making the newly generated portion of USD worthless and thus directly causing a huge USD devaluation or maybe even (hyper) inflation.
Since I wasn’t looking over Bernanke’s shoulder, this is what I believe has happened and is happening. If this is true, the most important thing for the people is to realize one thing they had to realize a long time ago: the real economy and the financial economy are not the same mechanism. They are interwoven but they are not the same thing. Far from it. “We the people” pioneered in giving a cart blanche to the so called “unelected” financial leaders long time ago (maybe unelected themselves but certainly relied upon by those elected ones) , “we the people” gave their trust to those financial masterminds and gave their trust to the markets. Willingly. For some time (while the real economy was flourishing as a result of this) most of “we the people” were satisfied and happy about it. I am not trying to be cynical here, but, let’s face it, this too is a result of that same trust and that same mechanism. Simply put, it’s the other side of the coin.
by Cedric X
From The Final Call, Vol. 15, No.6, On January 17, 1996
On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy’s order gave the Treasury the power “to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.” This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury’s vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.
With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificats were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the gevernment the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver.
After Mr. Kennedy was assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued. The Final Call has learned that the Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an Executive Order and is still valid. Why then has no president utilized it? Virtually all of the nearly $6 trillion in debt has been created since 1963, and if a U.S. president had utilized Executive Order 11110 the debt would be nowhere near the current level. Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to future presidents who would think to eliminate the U.S. debt by eliminating the Federal Reserve’s control over the creation of money. Mr. Kennedy challenged the government of money by challenging the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt – war and the creation of money by a privately-owned central bank. His efforts to have all troops out of Vietnam by 1965 and Executive Order 11110 would have severely cut into the profits and control of the New York banking establishment. As America’s debt reaches unbearable levels and a conflict emerges in Bosnia that will further increase America’s debt, one is force to ask, will President Clinton have the courage to consider utilizing Executive Order 11110 and, ifso, is he willing to pay the ultimate price for doing so?
Executive Order 11110 AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289
AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:
Section 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended-
By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):
(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12,1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption
and —
Byrevoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.
Sec. 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.
John F. Kennedy The White House, June 4, 1963.
Of course, the fact that both JFK and Lincoln met the the same end is a mere coincidence.
there is an extensive mathematical analysis of the Fed’s Ponzi scheme at http://www.synapticsparks.info/dialog/index.php?topic=32.msg192 . It details how the Fed obtains the TOTAL VALUE of all treasury securities===and that value is never shown on any accounting record.
And how many people still think that the Federal Reserve is a US governmental “division”? The Federal Reserve Bank is not under our control. We are under their control… They own us lock, stock, and barrel.
For g50:
Perhaps your point of view could be taken more seriously if the whole process had been completely transparent with the perpetrators of the derivative fraud being investigated and brought to justice; the recipients of the bailouts being specifically named, the structure by which the money could be used (no over-the-top bonuses, not allowing the money to be used to move production plants overseas ala GM), and the terms of their repayment schedule made public; and a concerted effort of the ELECTED public officials and the Government put forth (without the interference of the Fed and the major banks) to produce policy (and re-institute bills such as the “Glass Steagal” Act) that would create the groundwork of a stronger American monetary system.
How about this one:
What if the greatest HEALTH CONSPIRACY ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and BIG PHARMA has been paying ALL of the US MAINSTREAM MEDIA to cover it? Does that mean the HEALTH CONSPIRACY could STILL be going after 65 YEARS! That’s what we are about to find out: “gersonmedia.com” or “naturalnews.com”
I just saw a dvd yesterday made in 1996 which went into extrodinary detail on how the fed reserve manipulated there way into power. It’s amazing that even when this knowledge is out in the pulic arena. Notheing is done about. I was left in no doubt that the above senario was going to happen and alot of other people in 1006 must have known too, I t stated that all the media is owned by these people that run these privately owned banks and thats why even this big news gets glossed over, America nedds to take back control of their own money, no matter how much shit hits the fan.
New Zealnd
None of this matters if we just read it, get some feeling flowing, then walk away to a cow sandwich.
Pick a side and LIVE it!
TRUTH or the LIE
You know each when presented if you be quiet and listen to YOURSELF
we will soon be accountable for our choice
You have overlooked the Australian connection, Westpac, NAB(National Australia Bank) and the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia)
I am outraged. Have been for years since Reagan and I saw the middle class dwindling. I support Ron Pauls efforts to give the financial power back to our government at no interest. My Daddy said the debt was phony 30 years ago. I write letters but they do what they want. I dont like the Tea Party but I am glad this one issue they are taking head on. I hope we get CHANGE at the printing house and banksters get re-educated. What more can we do? Take to the streets like the Egyptians and demand democracy, justice, truth?
In case any Canadians are reading, a similar fraud has been going on in this great ‘democracy’ for !40 years now, during which time some two trillion dollars has been essentially stolen from ‘we the people’ via taxes and payments on a completely fraudulent ‘national debt’. And it all continues until ‘we the people’ stand up on our back legs like we’re meant to be doing and put a stop to it, rather than passively accepting everything our leaders tell us must be done. Unfortunately, sadly, the quote above seems very accurate – ““Giving people the facts as a strategy of influence” has been a failure. For Canada – What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html .
I AM OUTRAGED. SO WHAT DOES THE EVERYDAY AMERICAN DO ABOUT IT.
The ones that have all the money have all the power…thus make the rules we must live by. Since the FED prints the money they are too powerful. The American taxpayers have been abused by the FED. The FED is out of control and needs to be abolished….same for the IRS. Both need to be closed down.
We are doomed in thew U.S. until these changes are made. A Police State is develpoing quickly…..or it it just me? Too much bank intervention and government growth….it has to stop. We need new people in Washington to take control of this mess before we all end up relocating to Ecuador.
Better late than never. You seem to have awakened into a bit of nastiness, but you have hit only the tip of the iceberg. There have been well-researched works, dismissed as “conspiracy movies” by crackpots, that have detailed the illegitimacy of teh Federal Reserve from the git-go. And this all speaks to the illegitimacy of the IRS and the tax code on people vs. corporations, etc. The info has been out there and it is extremely well-documented. Anyone only has to search YouTube for “Zeitgeist”, “Moving Zeitgeist Forward” (one of the few that offers up workable solutions beyond just stating the problems), “Loose Change”, “America: Freedom to Fascism”, or search the internet for terms like “Rothschilds”, “straw man”, tax revolt, etc.
In answer to “what does the everyday person do about it?”, I strongly recommend “Zeitgesit Moving Forward” as something that provides some answers… but if one is not willing to give up a lot of unconscious lifestyle choices… then s/he is part of the problem. The acquisition game can’t continue.
It’s really funny, very sad but funny, all you crying over what has and, is continuing to happen. “What is an average American to do? First off you discredit Ron Paul, the ONLY true Constitutionaly devoted politician with the balls to stand up and SHARE with you what you need to do, then you trash the Tea Party, the only people that are at least trying to make positive change for our country. You do not get involved other than watching your favorite “news” (propaganda )program, then you go watch your very important sports program or American Idol show. What you really want is for everything to get OK, but you want somebody else to get involved and do it for you. You are a bunch of spineless crybabies. Do you raise hell with your congressman? Is your ‘life” more important than spending a few hours a month to help bring about change? Why hell no, it much easier to just sit and cry and bitch. You got a bad day coming, and you deserve every damn bit of it. If it’s not worth fighting for, then it’s not worth having. Go back to your television!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hallo,
Not only Ron Paul but also Dennis Kucinich had the guts to stand up on January 9th, 2009 in the american congress! There is Stephen Zarlenga, who in 2002 wrote “The Lost Science of Money”, a comprehensive book on the issues of “Money”.
So what should the american people do? You should follow the advice of no less than Thomas A. Edison who once said: “If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also.”
Just use the dollar bonds in small denominations – 1, 5,10, 20, 50, 100 Bondnotes as a complementary legal tender in the US, parallel to the dollar, which you now know is the “debt-money” of the private banks (+ The Federal Reserve!).
The US-government could then spend those Bondnotes into the american market circulation, interest-free! Practically by paying the salaries for half the amount with his own Bondnotes and by allowing business to pay taxes with the these Bondnotes. In this very simple way who would get a circulating “debt-free money” of your own!
Best regards,
Dr. Joseph Meyer – Belgium
All this and Manning is the one in Prison.
Yes,Too big to fail.
There are still 2 more bubbles left to deflate – the dollar and the national debt, and they promise to be the worst by far.
B-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen nothin’ yet…
Terrific syntax, style and format – an exciting new proactive, interactive presentation when compared to yesterday’s old print model for journalism.
P.S. Did you receive an email from Martin Mandelman? http://mandelman.ml-implode.com
I just received this in a email. I like it. Tell Ron Paul to use it in his speeches……
Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming , Co-Chair of the deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security” to a Milk Cow with 310 million ‘teats’.
Here’s a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana … I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is!
“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight..
1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
3 My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud..
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the “greedy” ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.
If you like the way things are in America delete this. If you agree with what a fellow Montana citizen Patty Myers says, PASS IT ON!!!!
I don’t think the Fed’s criminal activity could be more obvious. Unfortunately it seems that most people in Washington have no interest in pursuing criminal charges against big banks or the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, they’re happy to watch kids with a single joint get locked up and have their futures erased while being forced to do slave labor in private prisons. It truly is disgusting! Great article, thank you for exposing this for all to see as far too little attention is given to the Fed’s crimes.
Until we elect a president that will uphold the Laws of the United States of America, the whole system will go down the tubes: I support and will work for such a Man! Newt is the man for this time! Take two minutes to watch this, it may change your life, I know it did mine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=qtjfMjjce2Y
hi, this is Michael from the netherlands , europe :
over here we are standing on the eve of the biggest financial crime ever in europe
they want to make a central europe fund for all criminal bankers to get their money back .
everyday the numbers of the necessary money change /rise and countries with bad financial situation get added!
first it was ireland than it was portugal , now it is greece and on the new list is proudly a bankrupt italy and a bankrupt spain .
In order to save the euro they say we need money , but it dont go to the countries: it goes to the banks beacuse else we get no pensions payed
Oevr here the same is happening only not in 1 country what makes it even easier to steal .
the only possibility in my opinion is a complete new system and variuos arrests for those who put people in poverty : its an international crime and should be going to the international court of law for committing crimes against humanity
isnt poverty/ no food the same as killing people >?
It’s either going to be one of two things:
Economic fairness – or civil chaos.
It would seem to me that “the suits” don’t take the power of the American people too seriously. That doesn’t surprise at all. Sooner or later they’ll realize that we have the power to shut this country down. They don’t. In fact, even if they did have the power, they wouldn’t dare shut it down. The need for the machine to keep churning out bodies.
As I said, we can shut this place down. They won’t know what the hell hit them. Think I’m kidding?
On that happy note – Cheerio! Pip! Pip!
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Man, This is unreal that people on here are defending the Fed. Especially the uneducated drones who haven’t looked at history like…. at all to come up with their conclusion. g50 and his clan of morons have decided that the federal reserve is needed. Don’t look at the history that the fed from 1913 to 1920 quadrupled (yes..quadrupled) the money supply and then cut off that injection by 30 percent in 1929 leading to… yep, the great depression. The depression that even Bernanke and Greenspan have stated was contrived because of the Fed’s policies. Bernankes quote about it was “yes, the federal reserve was responsible and we’ll try not to allow that to happen again.” Well thats reassuring. The manipulation of the interest rates lead to these nebulous bubbles like the high tech and mortgage bubbles, which can bring down our entire nation. The fed suppressed the interest rates for years upon years to ensure investment. Eventually, the market became saturated and mal-investment occurred leading to the bubble bursting. So, the Fed was, without a doubt, responsible for the crisis. (yes the banks created CDO’s and default swaps but they would have never even attempted to create those evil things if home prices didn’t continue to exponentially increase). A myriad of economists in the early 1900′s are on record saying that “now, every depression will be scientifically made.” and wow, what do you know. just 20 years after the Fed was created the greatest depression in the history of the world went on. But thats just a coincidence g50? NOW, lets look at the reality of your idiotic statement about the Fed did what it had to do. adding 14 trillion (article says 12, but going back to 06 its 14) dollars to our money supply is absolutely going to lead to hyperinflation. You really want to talk about the middle class losing their jobs and their money. Injecting 14 Trillion of Fed “created” dollars is going to lead to those people’s savings being worth half then they are now in 5 years. Sounds like a great deal for the middle class. The only people that it is advantageous towards is the banks who get it first. After the banks use it, it is officially injected into the world and inflation occurs. The banks get off scott free.. So now matter how you’re trying to justify your ignorance.. It’s just plain stupid… Oh yeah, and I have a masters in economics and a PHD in political economy. So for unfortunately for you, I do understand economics.. sorry bud
I applaud your efforts to date. The actions taken by the Fed are awful. The secret money, if not already, should be illegal and prosecuted. I will do my own best to see this information spread as widely as possible. However, rather than blindly accepting your information as the truth, which I am wont to do, I would very strongly request you make public your sources. In effect, I want proof that what you say is true. In doing so, and having the reading public disseminate the information and sources as widely as possible, it will become impossible to ignore the truth. That’s what we want. The truth, and a course of action to get it.
Thanks very much for your efforts to date
Richard Prokopchuk
Oh…and I forgot to add, Andrew Jackson was and always shall be right, just, and correct in his actions toward a Central Bank. The effects of his efforts cost him dearly. RIP President Jackson.
Ok…I have read your article, and I have come to some of the same conclusions that perhaps you have reached as well.
I’m not going to spend a lot of lines trying to defend this “debt-based” monetary system, as it’s presently being operated, by these “banksters.”
But, Banksters can get away with this complete horror, over and over and over again, for one simple reason: BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENTS KEEP LETTING THEM, and why?
GOVERNMENTS CANNOT see farther than their own noses to
realize and proceed from the standpoint that
Taking from people’s EARNINGS, to
operate, or make good on obligations incurred,
***SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK, in the end.***
But, taking from people’s BORROWINGS, instead
(which could ALSO be recognized as INCOME, if Government were
allowed to,) in a certain way, where all could benefit….
***MIGHT, if, certain rules and limitations were applied*****
We all know, that in this “debt-based” economy, BORROWING inside the “real” economy outpaces EARNING by a ratio of, perhaps 9:1, perhaps a TON MORE.
If certain alterations to the system could be made
so that Government taxed a BORROWER, in a certain way, at the point of BORROWING….
(…whether that borrowing be at the point of transaction at the register, with credit card usages, or, at the point of Promissory note drafting, between bank and customers, much in the same way as adding to a Principal amount with an insurance rider…)
then, essentially, Banks that borrow from Central, or, Member Banks that borrow from each other, to keep afloat or balances right, are also paying taxes at the point of borrowing…
because, a “tax rider” would get added to the principal amount, that that bank would borrow, HOWEVER, since it’s a “TAX RIDER” being added to the principal,
…..any Interest assessed would only be charged upon the PRINCIPAL Amount that The BORROWER would spend (or Loan, in the Borrowing Bank’s case) and any private Insurance rider added to that Principal…
Now, let’s take a look at that 12.3 Trillion that the FED loaned out at near 0% Interest….
If a TAX RIDER of, let’s say, a Federal flat 4% upon the Principal (and perhaps the Insurance Rider added), and a States, (as a group) 2% were added to the Principal…that got loaned out to all the Banks (world bailout manuver, or not) what would the total be going back to the Congress…and all the State Assemblies?
Let’s do the Math…
The banks would have to pay back ALL the Principal, but only pay back 0.25% (I think it was 0.25%) of the interest assessed upon everything BUT the TAX RIDER…
(ok, let’s see…
The principal needed by borrowers to spend (or lend out) PLUS any “insurance rider” amounts would (let’s say) equal the 12.3 Trillion that was lent
…and, even though, adding the supposed TAX RIDER would make the FINAL PRINCIPAL be 13.038 Trillion, (that’s 12.3T + 6% (4% to Fed, 2% to all the States)
The Borrowing Banks would only pay interest upon the 12.3 T, which works out to: 30.75 Billion the Fed would collect, over time!….(which after expenses, a good deal of that goes back to Federal coffers anyway…)
The supposed TAX RIDER would net the Federal Coffers about:
492 BILLION,
(and that’s taken right at the point of LENDING, (which goes directly to the Federal coffers, at the point the loan gets lent, much like an “INSURANCE RIDER” check would get cut, to the Insurance Underwriters, under a normal “everyday” loan like you and I would get…)
And that supposed TAX RIDER, (if a 2% to the States were tacked on) could net the states 246 BILLION, going directly to their State Coffers…
Now…Over time…the Borrowing Banks would be paying back the Principal of 13.038 Trillion, + 30.75 Billion in interest coming too…
And do you know what 13.06875 Trillion being paid back to the Economy would DO???? I guess you can….
And that would be just the TIP of the iceberg, folks…if we had a BORROWING TAX, instead of a TAX upon EARNERS, like we do now…
But, here we are back in reality, where Government still can’t see past their own noses, and thinks keeping their hands in YOUR POCKETS keeps things right in the world…..
And that’s where the whole problem rests: Government.
Perhaps the belief of Government is…as long as it can remain under the status of DEBTOR in our monetary system, to the BANK (regardless, of whether the “Banksters” suggested to them they do it, or not…) then,
even the HOMELESS person picking a penny up off the ground, is subject to paying taxes on that penny he or she “earned”.
Perhaps not directly upon them through that penny.
But with things the way they are: That homeless person PAYS through constant DEPRECIATION of the purchasing power of that penny….because of all the TAXES METED UPON the EARNINGS of EVERYONE, who sells product to others, and must pass along the COST of those TAXES, in the prices they sell their product to Consumers…..
(it’s not the Borrowing of Capital INTO the system to Circulate, that weakens the purchasing strength…it’s the TAXES meted upon the PRODUCERS, that pass it along in the PRICES, that does it!)
and THERE is where Government gets the poor Homeless bugger….
and DEPRECIATION is HIDDEN LEGALIZED ROBBERY….
So, tell me what the bigger crime is? The LENDING of Capital, or the TAXES upon Earners causing Depreciation?
You tell me, folks!
Many ask what can be done about this?…Elect Ron Paul president 2012!
.
This is the time to re-evaluate our rights and Democracy processes.
It’s true! We are reaching boiling point and the masses are starting to assemble with unrest! No food, no job and no housing equates to a revolution, it’s as simple as that! Drastic problems always requires drastic solutions when the normal course of action doesn’t work.
I never quite undestood why the bailout of the auto industry that provided jobs and manufacturing was unsupported by congress. That part of the bailout actually worked and now we put out cars that compete with imports. GM and Chysler paid back their loans in record time. Amazingly enough there was structure in that lending process which had positive results.
As for Wall Street and the banking sector we should have let them die off. The intent was for them to lend money to businesses to spur expansion, innovation and payrolls.
If we fail to understand the concept of “survival of the fittest” and provide for ourselves as a nation, then our way of life as we know it is doomed.
Crimes? The Federal Reserve committed crimes? I don’t think so. The institution acted reprehensibly. But that’s not (necessarily) the same as acting criminally.
Here’ s a look at the Federal Reserve Act and its amendments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjxU8bqXHn8 Skip to the one hour mark, and pay attention.
Bernanke is implacable before Congress, because he knows that he is not criminally liable for anything, because no laws were broken. The law ALLOWS the Fed to do what it does.
Is Ron Paul part of the controlled opposition? He has yet to introduce legislation that would in any way curtail the authority wielded by the Fed.
The FED is a Private Company. Just how are we the Tax Payers ending up with their debt from the money they give to other countries. I can see where the money they give the U.S. Government is our debt which is bad enough but, we the people are not responsible for all that other debt.