We were told that the TARP bailout consisted of loans of $800 billion. The true magnitude of the bailout was
much more. Bloomberg News, not a fringe organization, sued the Federal Reserve via Freedom of Information. The financial industry & the Fed lost in court and attempted to get the Supreme Court to save them, but the Court refused to hear the case. Bloomberg found that that between August 2007 and April 2010 secret Fed loans gave the banks $13 billion in profits by providing the banks below market interest rates. PBS/Bloomberg video
In addition, the Bloomberg lawsuite found the that Federal Reserve provided loan gurantees of $7.77 trillion. But even this was not the true magnitutde of the bailout, which it took an act of Congress to unearth.
An unlikely coalition that included Tea Party Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Independent Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Liberal Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida and Republican Libertarian Representative Ron Paul of Texas passed legislation producing the first ever GAO Audit of the Federal Reserve.
The audit as explained on Senator Sanders' website, showed that between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve provided interest free loan gurantees totalling 16 trillion dollars to banks and corporations, some foreign. If the press were free and doing its job, this would be the top news story, yet it is barely covered by the American media. Here are some other failures of our free press.
To put $16 trillion in perspective, the entire US economy is under $15 trillion and the Federal debt is $15 trillion.
I'm Mad as Hell. Here are some of the major recipients of your money. This, while the nation bleeds wealth, crumbles and begins to resemble a 3rd world country.
Bernacke in Congress on OWS.