Hidden money in America
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.
This is lovely. I can see the value of not naming to the general public which banks are receiving the money–it would be an invitation to have runs begin on those banks. But to refuse to name them to lawmakers, who need to know these things? And to refuse to name non-banking institutions that received the public money? Uh uh, no way. The Bush administration again oversteps it’s bounds, and provides further demonstration of how they run America as a tinpot dictatorship.
