Take a few minutes and watch Jon Stewart skewer TARP and then the bill (S.1867 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012) that will allow for indefinite detention of Americans. How very unAmerican.
On both of these issues, my question is: What in the world can average citizens do?In other words, why bother? Being an American seems to mean less and less.
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Stewart is basically right, though $7.7 trillion in loans never went out the door. To be more precise: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/bloomberg-news-responds-to-bernanke-criticism.html
“In a March 31, 2009, story, Bloomberg News
tallied the potential commitments of the Fed using as sources
statements the central bank made and its weekly balance sheet.
The amount, $7.77 trillion, was never characterized by Bloomberg
as money lent by the Fed, though other commentators have
mistakenly used it in that context. Rather, Bloomberg has said
that that amount represents what the Fed “lent, spent or
committed†or the total of all “guarantees and lending
limits.†Bloomberg has been careful to characterize this number
as total commitments, not loans that went out the door.
“Bloomberg News reported that Fed lending peaked
at $1.2 trillion, a figure that didn’t include any double-
counting. Instead of adding all the outstanding Fed loans to get
a large number, Bloomberg used peak loan amounts that were
outstanding on a single day. On the day after the Nov. 28 story,
the Fed published that $1.2 trillion figure, affirming
Bloomberg’s calculation.”
That said, a high of $1.2 trillion in outstanding loans leading to $10 billion in profits is only slightly less insane. My business sure could use a couple million in profits from 0.01% interest loans…
Thanks and I totally agree. Realistically, it’s all fake money being used by those with no consequences to perpetrate schemes that benefit few.Â