To big to FAIL.
Wonder how much the Fed will flush down the toilet THIS time.
“Fed audit: $16 TRILLION in loansto banks in less than 3 years.”
Yes, that’s sixteen trillion dollars in “emergency” loans to financial institutions from the beginning of the recession in December 2007 to just one year ago. The long-awaited GAO audit shows that the Federal Reserve loaned more than the worth of the annual US economy, and not just to American banks, although US institutions got the lion’s share. Citibank was the largest beneficiary:
Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows.
Additionally, asset swap arrangements were opened with banks in the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Switzerland. Twelve of those arrangements are still ongoing, having been extended through August 2012.
Out of all borrowers, Citigroup received the most financial assistance from the Fed, at $2.5 trillion. Morgan Stanley came in second with $2.04 trillion, followed by Merill Lynch at $1.9 trillion and Bank of America at $1.3 trillion.
And there is a pattern to the disbursements, too:
The audit also found that the Fed mostly outsourced its lending operations to the very financial institutions which sparked the crisis to begin with, and that they delegated contracts largely on a no-bid basis. The GAO report recommends new policies that would eliminate such conflicts of interest, and suggests that in the future the Fed should keep better records of their emergency decision-making process.