http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok
U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs (Update1)
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.
Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
Financial Rescue
The pledges, amounting to almost two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up about 18 months ago. The promises are composed of about $1 trillion in stimulus packages, around $3 trillion in lending and spending and $5.7 trillion in agreements to provide aid. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps.
Read the rest of the article<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok> .
Also, here's the mission statement from the FRB's Office of the Inspector General:
> The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts independent and objective
> audits, inspections, evaluations, investigations, and other reviews related
> to programs and operations of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
> System (Board). OIG efforts promote integrity, economy, efficiency, and
> effectiveness; help prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse; and
> strengthen accountability to the Congress and the public. The OIG’s work
> assists the Board in managing risk and in achieving its overall mission to
> foster the stability, integrity, and efficiency of the nation’s monetary,
> financial, and payment systems so as to promote optimal macroeconomic
> performance.
>
--CS
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 15
> Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 21:22:46 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] the Fed is so far out to lunch...
> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0905262118190.13129 at panix1.panix.com>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>
> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Doug Henwood linked to a youtube clip of US Rep. Alan
> Grayson questioning Fed Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman:
>
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlxBeAvsB8
>
> What are these enormous off-balance sheet Fed transactions he's talking
> about? Does anyone have a link handy to the Bloomberg article he's
> referencing?
>
> Michael
>
>
--
--
Chris Sturr
Co-editor, Dollars & Sense
29 Winter St.
Boston, Mass. 02108
phone: 617-447-2177, ext. 205
fax: 617-447-2179
email: sturr at dollarsandsense.org