Bob Ivry On Bernanke's Trillion Dollar Honey Pot

PBS News Hour Video - Judy Woodruff with Bob Ivry of Bloomberg News - Nov. 30, 2011

Ivry helped write this story for the January edition of Bloomberg Magazine.

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Read the transcript at PBS

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, new questions about the money the Federal Reserve 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.

• Bernanke's Stealth Bailout Kept Secret From Congress

• Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13 Billion

Comments

[DailyBail]

CHART OF THE DAY: KYLE BASS: This Is What The End Of The Global Debt Super-Cycle Looks Like

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-global-debt-to-gdp-2011-12#ixzz1fhczk7ur

[mick]

will there ever be justice or are we going to be fucked over again and again ?
should the "Occupy" movement grow to be an armed revolution ?
these people buy "the authorities" like we buy food !

[Sagebrush]

D.B. What's with the spamavalanche?

[George Forfa]

Corruption is sleazy work for those who crave power enough to do those things. Of course, the powerful believe that they are going to escape the consequences of their actions. In the short term, they have managed to forestall what they deserve. In the long run, they don't have a chance.

http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-daily-climb-2/

[Josie]

As this interview shows, Judy W. is a complete moron, and thankfully was given her walking papers as a Trustee of my alma mater. What was not discussed in this interview, not surprisingly, was the CAUSE of the crisis, and the Fed's role in the crisis before, during and after (including now). We can only fix a problem if we know the root cause(s).

Our financial system is based on fractional reserve banking, leverage and fiat currency. That's it. Not complex. What happened was a massive collapse and resulting liquidity crisis--the banks did not have any money (That's why Mohammed El Arian of PIMCO told his wife to go to the ATM and take out all their cash--wow, wonder what that number was)!!

What!? How!? Why!? They are banks, right? No, not really. The banks became and are casinos with OPM, levered up. They all were (and probably still are) levered up the ying/yang with no reserves. Gambling/speculating on whatever the latest/greatest was (ulimately real estate).

Has this system changed? No. But, there are TRILLIONS more dollars out there now flaoting around, plugging holes, thanks to the Fed. The Fed just needs to shrink its bloated balance sheet over time after the "recovery," right? Good luck with that with GDP growth at a whopping duece%...

Is it happy hour yet? I need a drink...