(via David Flanders)
In the lead-up to the financial crisis that crippled the American economy and plunged the country into a recession, the Federal Reserve made trillions in undisclosed loans to struggling banks and financial institutions…. Six of the country’s largest banks then turned those loans into more than $13 billion in previously undisclosed profits. The total cost of the Fed loans amounted to $7.77 trillion, and unlike the funds made available by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the loans came with virtually no strings attached for the banks
When I first heard this, I was dumbstruck. Surely, I remember thinking, there’s NO WAY our government would secretly loan ALMOSt $8 TRILLION to the very same banks who brought the American economy to the brink of destruction. NO WAY could something of that magnitude happen without SOMEONE SOMEWHERE knowing about it and making it public. Even worse, NO WAY would the same banks who almost cratered the economy be allowed to profit off such loans without even disclosing those profits.
Well, silly me. Of course those things happened, because that’s just what those in positions of wealth, influence, and power do in America. They subject the poor and middle class to all manner of rules, scrutiny, means testing, and other methods of validation to ensure that government assistance is warranted and reasonable. As for the wealthiest among us…well, rules are for losers and Librerals, remember??
I only have but one question: shouldn’t someone be going to prison for this??
