Foreign Banks Tapped Fed's Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret

[IScreamSundays]

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as much as $33.5 billion through its New York branch from the Fed’s “discount window” lending program, according to Fed documents released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Dublin-based Depfa Bank Plc, taken over in 2007 by a German real-estate lender later seized by the German government, drew $24.5 billion.

The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record. The disclosures may stoke a reexamination of the risks posed to U.S. taxpayers by the central bank’s role in global financial markets.

“The caricature of the Fed is that it was shoveling money to big New York banks and a bunch of foreigners, and that is not conducive to its long-run reputation,” said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2001 to 2007.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-01/foreign-banks-tapped-fed-s-lifeline-most-as-bernanke-kept-borrowers-secret.html

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[lonestarnot]

2. K & R!

[LiberalEsto]

3. WTF?

OUR taxes supporting FOREIGN BANKS? This is obscene.

Have any of them paid us back, with interest?

[lonestarnot]

4. Here is another link

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/01/u-s-fed-loaned-libya-backed-bank-billions/#

[crickets]

5. Oh, that's going to go over well. -nt

[ljm2002]

6. I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

...our banksters committed international FRAUD and we the taxpayers had to make good at 100 cents to the dollar, in order to avoid not only international financial collapse but retaliation against our interests.

That's why our politicians were all ashen-faced back at the end of Bush's term and agreed post-haste to the first bailout -- even though their constituents across the political spectrum were dead set against it, by 100 to 1 in some cases that were spoken of in the press.

We are making good for the bastards that committed fraud, while the bastards that committed fraud are collecting record bonuses.

That is the end result of a totally corrupted capitalist system, which is what we have today.

[indepat]

9. If ever the nail has been hit squarely on the head, your assessment of this

wretched saga does. Rather than the fraudsters being prosecuted, they have been protected by failure to put the regulatory screws to them and having the way paved for their receiving record bonuses. :applause:

[ljm2002]

10. It just seems so obvious to me...

...and the fact that we had international banks borrowing at very favorable rates from the Fed just made it all the more clear.

On the other hand, I am surprised it is legal. I thought the Fed was a US institution, created to deal with US money. Now it is becoming more and more clear that the powers that be are instituting an international monetary system, isn't it? I do not say this as a conspiracy buff, nor with any xenophobic rancor. But it does seem to make the international corporate takeover of almost everything, all the more apparent, doesn't it?

[Thunderstruck]

11. And we let them all get away with it - with bonuses. They get the bonuses, the middle

class gets the bill. Teachers are shunned. Union employees are demonized. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I just got Inside Job in the mail. From what I've read so far hear on DU about the film, it's not going be pretty.

[Hotler]

7. k&r n/t

[Gin]

8. I knew this intuitively when they took the secret route to protect

the banks...now seeing the numbers is no surprise...just a sickening reminder of how we were, and are being robbed....we have no proof this money is being or has been paid back...how could it be proved???