Wall St likes your amnesia

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/ML10Dj03.html

On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. <1> Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed US$7.77 trillion in below-market loans and guarantees to rescuing the financial system; and that these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.

The Fed insisted that the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, but the Bloomberg report said the banks reaped a $13 billion windfall in profits; and "details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger."

The revelations provoked shock and outrage among commentators. But in a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Committees focused on the financial services industry, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke responded on December 6 that the


figures were greatly exaggerated. He said the loans were being double-counted: short-term loans rolled over from day to day were counted as separate cumulative loans rather than as a single extended loan.

Bloomberg was quick to rebut, denying any exaggerated claims. <2> But either way, the banks were clearly getting perks not available to the rest of us. As former congressman Alan Grayson observed in a December 5 editorial:

'The main, if not the sole, qualification for getting help from the Fed was to have lost huge amounts of money. The Fed bailouts rewarded failure, and penalized success. ...'

[dkf]

1. Those weren't only banks, they were also corporations.

And since when do individuals get the best rates? That isn't normal practice.

[MedicalAdmin]

2. Obtuse or stupid?

Nope, I'm goIng with deliberately compensated.

Seriously, are you actually that uninformed? Are you rally equating a 1000% markup between banks and consumers. Besides the bigger problem here is that well connected big banks that crashed the economy got a hugely better deal than responsible smaller banks. It is the use if public funds to support destructive monopolistic behaviors.

Get it now or should I spell it out with wooden blocks?

[classysassy]

3. Thanks for your lesson in banking 101

but your high and mighty opinion of your self ,we can do without.

[No Elephants]

4. I doubt Wall St. gives two shits about my amnesia. It likes govenment's amnesia quite a bit, though