12/6/10, "The Democratic House should use its final weeks to demand every single document about the bank bailouts," Slate, Eliot Spitzer
"It turns out that the Federal Reserve delivered an astonishing $9 trillion in short-term loans during 2008-09. That is not a misprint. Trillion. Goldman Sachs: $590 billion; Citibank: $1.8 trillion; GE: $16 billion. The magnitude of these wealth transfers has not been fully grasped
- or even fully discussed in the public arena.
Yet despite the enormity of this Fed rescue, our economy has stalled. As many predicted,
- bailing out the banks is not the same as improving the economy.
While capital is making huge sums, watch the size of this year's Wall Street bonuses—unemployment is stuck at 9.8 percent and our core sectors are suffering. Meanwhile, IPOs in Asia have raised about three times as much as IPOs in the United States this year. As an indicator of future growth, this does not bode well.
In addition to the other crises that surround us, we have a crisis of transparency. What's shocking about the bailouts is what we still don't know about them. We don't know what the banks knew about impending risks as the events unfolded. We don't know what the government officials who extended these loans asked before they handed over trillions of your dollars.Just as I have little confidence anymore that we are given accurate information
- about the reality of conditions in Afghanistan,
- so I lack any confidence that the government officials in charge have been anything close to honest about the reality of the bailouts.
- and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt—fought vigorously
.
No comments:
Post a Comment