(H/T – Dad29)
Bloomberg L.P. is trying to find out, but the Federal Reserve has refused a FOIA request asking for the recipients of more than $2,000,000,000,000 in emergency loans from 11 Fed lending programs, as well as the assets the Fed accepted as collateral. A majority of that, $1.23 trillion, was sent out after the Fed started accepting collateral that was rated worse than AAA on September 12.
The Fed, in its denial, said that there were 231 pages of records stemming from a partial search. Also from the denial, written by Jennifer J. Johnson, secretary for the Fed’s Board of Governors: “Notwithstanding calls for enhanced transparency, the Board must protect against the substantial, multiple harms that might result from disclosure…. In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information.”
Jim Rodgers, a prominent international investor, speculates that most of the banks are bankrupt. Dad29 runs with that and says that “…the Fed doesn’t want another short-selling frenzy.”
Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, has the $64,000 $2 trillion statement – “If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know.”
