US Federal Reserve chief rules out loans to the states

[Hannah Bell]

Testifying last Friday before the Senate Budget Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rejected any aid to state or local governments across the country that are facing massive budget deficits. “We have no expectation or intention to get involved in state and local finances...states should not expect loans from the Fed.”

Bernanke was seconded by the Democratic chairman of the committee, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who said neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate would be “very interested in bailouts to the states.”

Having placed the US Treasury at the disposal of the Wall Street banks, plundering the national wealth to the tune of trillions of dollars to bail out the financial elite, the Fed and the administration contemptuously dismiss any suggestion that funds should be allocated to maintain basic social services—education, sanitation, fire protection—and programs for health care, housing and nutrition on which tens of millions of people rely.

This comes only weeks after Obama’s deal with the Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, with the added windfall of a cut in estate taxes that will give some 6,600 families an additional $23 billion.

Bernanke, meanwhile, is maintaining interest rates at near zero and electronically printing up hundreds of billions of dollars in order to pump up the stock market and keep corporate profits at record levels by providing virtually free credit to the banks and corporations.

Tacitly acknowledging that this policy will do nothing to resolve the jobs crisis, he complacently predicts that unemployment will remain near or above 9 percent for years to come.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/pers-j13.shtml

[Newest Reality]

1. Good time to get rid of the "Federal" Reserve, now.

They are only interested in propping-up their bank buddies and we get a bill and have to pay them interest. After all, it is a private organization of bankers and maybe it is alright now to call their bluff out-loud and in the open and as a people? In that case, just who the heck are they to decide our economic policy and to whom financial aid is given, especially these days?

Or. we could just let this continue and find out T. Jefferson was correct in his warnings and we can just all wake-up homeless someday.

[SDuderstadt]

4. Maybe you should read the...

Federal Reserve Act and learn what the Fed does and how it does it. For example, your complaint about paying interest to the Federal Reserve is off-base as the Fed is required by federal law to rebate all of its proceeds, minus operating costs, back to the US Treasury.

www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/Federal_Reserve.html

[aquart]

2. I can't say what I wish for Bernanke because of that rhetoric thing.

Pity.

[AdHocSolver]

3. America belongs to Wall Street -- the evidence. k & r. nt.