Wednesday, November 30, 2011

THE FED - Questions About Loans to Banks

"Fed Faces New Scrutiny for Trillions in Assistance to Banks After Crisis" PBS Newshour 11/29/2011

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Next, new questions about the money the Federal Reserve (aka The Fed) provided to banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

Bloomberg magazine published a report this week detailing loans made by the Fed in 2008 and 2009, loans that totaled more than a trillion dollars on a single day in December 2008, and more than $7 trillion in loans and other commitments to saving the financial system between 2007 and 2010.

The extent of the loans to specific banks wasn't revealed to Congress at the time. The article also says that banks earned billions of dollars of profits on these loans, and that a number of Wall Street firms borrowed money even as they publicly told investors that their financial position was strong.

The Fed, meanwhile, has defended the actions, saying that its assistance was critical to saving the financial system.

We look at this more closely now with one of the reporters who has been investigating this for Bloomberg News, Bob Ivry.

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