Federal reserve admits it doled out trillions of tax dollars to foreign banks
pubrecord.org
pubrecord.org
12.3 trillion? What is this an Austin Powers movie?
There's around 10 trillion dollars of money in the entire US! (M2 and lower money supply.) And around 50 trillion in total assets.
So you say an audit of the Federal Reserve is not necessary?
I think a collapse of the USA could be the best thing for ordinary US citizens in 10 years.
I certainly don't think the fed is the "source of all ills".
And no, most of it isn't packed briefcases of five-dollar notes.
And discount rate of 0.5% is not as normal, as one might think. Compare with China -- ~3%, or Russia -- 7.75%.
The 12.3 trillion number sounds absurd, but it is real. What the article neglects to mention is that about 9 trillion was very short term and double counting along with various other exceptions. Only about 3 trillion was actually a handout.
Still, the point of the article seems valid, in a way that your foux-amazement fails to challange. Bankers were given more money then we can imagine, because they held the Fed hostage.
Note that it costs the Fed nothing to make these loans. The Fed simply creates the money. To the extent that this is electronic money, there are not even printing costs associated with this money. Viewed in this light, any interest at all is too much because the money is only free for the Fed. The citizens who are taxed to pay it back with interest must work for the money.
To get an idea of the wealth involved, consider that most homes are purchased with borrowed money. Over the course of thirty years, the interest payments on the loans are two to three times greater than the cost of the homes themselves. Now consider that it cost the banks almost nothing to make the loan. They literally created most of the money at the time of the loan.
Thomas Edison said: People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest.
Kind of like the guy who trained himself to find golf balls everywhere.
The means by which the Fed extracts wealth from US citizens is not by taxation, but by inflation, since they effectively control the monetary base on which the money supply rests.
Some would argue that inflation is worse than taxation, since it disproportionately affects the lower class who pay the leading inflation "tax" in higher food and energy prices.
But that's an argument for another day. The fact is that journalists habitually get it wrong when they refer to the Federal Reserve as using "tax dollars", which is a blatant lie.
Also, as ars pointed out, these are currency swaps and loans, not handouts.
A different way to show it was a handout: What if the Federal Reserve gave out loans to all Americans with underwater loans (against the purchased price of the house, not current market value)? Why did the Fed give out loans to the CDS and loan holders of those very same assets? Isn't the default risk the same?
Only startup I know working on this is bitcoin, any other alternative currencies?
As far as online currency, Facebook has the best chance to establish this: http://www.facebook.com/credits/