The Fed Refuses to tell taxpayers which Welfare Queens are getting the handouts

[marmar]

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Identify Bank Loans

By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Alison Fitzgerald

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''

Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.

The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''

Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment on the loans or the Bloomberg lawsuit. Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn't respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.

The Fed's lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan -- without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=home

[LaurenG]

1. That is unacceptable - it's our money and we deserve to know who is supposed to benefit

from it. After all it was the greed of the sector getting the funds who caused this to start with.

[gratuitous]

2. Why should we suddenly get to know what's being done with our money?

We haven't known jackshit about what's been done with our money and in our name for nearly the entirety of the Bush administration, going all the way back to Dick Cheney's secret energy summit early in 2001. Since then, we the people haven't been allowed to know who our agents have been torturing, or who we've been slaughtering, or even who our mercenaries are. We're such frail little children, we'd never understand, you see.

So a trillion dollars is going into the overstuffed pockets of a favored few financial moguls? So what? Just because it's our money, we all have to trust the smartest, wisest man ever to grace us with his presence in government, Wall Street, uh, financial mogul Henry Paulson. Gee, that looks like some sort of conflict of interest. Wait, what am I saying?! Creeping socialism, it's everywhere!

[Historic NY]

3. AIG just got another freight car of cash......biggest queen on the block

http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/government-provides-more-aid-to-aig/242451?icid=200100397x1212755711x1200795554