Tag Archives: gao investigation of federal reserve

Bernanke’s 29 Trillion Dollar Fog of Deceit

By L. Randall Wray

As I reported over at Great Leap Forward,a new study by two UMKC PhD students, Nicola Matthews and James Felkerson,provides the most comprehensive examination yet of the Fed’s bail-out of WallStreet. They found that the true total cumulative amount lent and spent onasset purchases was $29 trillion. That is $29,000,000,000,000. Lots of zeros.The number is quite a bit bigger than previous estimates. You can read the first of what will be a series of reports on their study here: I want to be clear that this is a cumulative total—and for reasons I willdiscuss in this post it is the best measure if we want to understand themonumental Fed effort to restore Wall Street to its pre-crisis 2007 glory.
 
It is certain that no government anywhere, ever, hascommitted so much to benefit so few. Wall Street owes the Fed a big fat wetkiss. That’s a kiss Chairman Bernanke apparently does not want.
Last week he extended the Fed’s veil of secrecy over itsbail-out of Wall Street by trying to counter a recent Bloomberg analysis of theextent of the Fed’s largess with a fog of deceit. Apparently the Chairmanforgot the lesson we learned from Watergate: the cover-up is always worse thanthe original indiscretion.

US Senator Bernie Sanders’ Dream Team Includes Deficit Owls and Elite Fraud Fighters

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 – Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other nationally-renowned economists agreed today to serve on a panel of experts to help Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) draft legislation to reform the Federal Reserve.

Sanders announced formation of his expert advisory panel in the wake of a damning report that faulted apparent conflicts of interest by bank-picked board members at the 12 regional Fed banks.
Top executives from Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, General Electric and other firms sat on the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks while their firms benefited from the central bank’s policies during the financial crisis, the Government Accountability Office investigation found. The dual roles created an appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the GAO.

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