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<\/a>What you are about to read should absolutely astound you.\u00a0 During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret.\u00a0 Do you remember the TARP bailout?\u00a0 The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d banks.\u00a0 Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did.\u00a0 As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d banks between 2007 and 2010.\u00a0 So have you heard about this on the nightly news?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture.\u00a0 The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down.\u00a0 The Federal Reserve has been actively picking \u201cwinners\u201d and \u201closers\u201d in the financial system, and it turns out that the \u201cfriends\u201d of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the \u201cwinners\u201d.\u00a0 This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.<\/p>\nAccording to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping\u00a0$16.1 trillion<\/a>.<\/p>\n That is an astonishing amount of money.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that the GDP of the United States for the entire year of 2010 was only\u00a014.58 trillion dollars<\/a>.<\/p>\n The total U.S. national debt is only a bit above\u00a015 trillion dollars<\/a>\u00a0right now.<\/p>\n So 16 trillion dollars is an almost inconceivable amount of money.<\/p>\n But some other dollar figures have been thrown around lately regarding these secret Federal Reserve bailouts.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a look at them and see what they mean.<\/p>\n $1.2 Trillion<\/strong><\/p>\n A recent\u00a0Bloomberg article<\/a>\u00a0made the following statement\u2026.<\/p>\n The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 \u2014 the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg \u2014 was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The $1.2 trillion figure represents the peak outstanding balance on these loans, not the total amount of all the loans.\u00a0 On December 5, 2008 the \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d banks owed this much money to the Federal Reserve.\u00a0 Many of them could not pay these short-term loans back right away and had to keep rolling them over time after time.\u00a0 Each time a short-term loan got rolled over that represented a new loan.<\/p>\n $7.7 Trillion<\/strong><\/p>\n Bloomberg\u00a0is reporting<\/a>\u00a0that the Federal Reserve had made a total of $7.77 trillion in financial commitments to the big banks by the end of March 2009\u2026.<\/p>\n Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But as mentioned above, a one-time limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act covered an even broader time period and revealed even more bailout loans.<\/p>\n According to the GAO audit,\u00a0$16.1 trillion<\/a>\u00a0in secret loans were made by the Federal Reserve between December 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010.\u00a0 The following list of firms and the amount of money that they received was taken directly from\u00a0page 131<\/a>\u00a0of the GAO audit report\u2026.<\/p>\n Citigroup \u2013\u00a0$2.513 trillion<\/strong> This report was made available to all the members of Congress, but most of them have been totally silent about it.\u00a0 One of the only members of Congress that has said something has been\u00a0U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n The following is an excerpt from a statement about this audit that was taken\u00a0from the official website of Senator Sanders<\/a>\u2026.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So where is everyone else?<\/p>\n Why aren\u2019t leading Republicans and leading Democrats crying bloody murder over this report?<\/p>\n This scandal should have been front page news for months when it was revealed.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n And Guess what?<\/p>\n Not only did the Federal Reserve give 16.1 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free loans to the \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d banks, the Fed also paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program.\u00a0\u00a0According to the GAO<\/a>, the Federal Reserve shelled out an astounding\u00a0$659.4 million<\/a>\u00a0in \u201cfees\u201d to the very financial institutions which caused the financial crisis in the first place.<\/p>\n In addition, it turns out that trillions of dollars of this bailout money actually went overseas.\u00a0 According to the GAO audit, approximately\u00a0$3.08 trillion<\/a>\u00a0went to foreign banks in Europe and in Asia.<\/p>\n So why were our dollars being used to bail out foreign banks while tens of millions of American families were deeply suffering?<\/p>\n That is a very good question.<\/p>\n Also, it is important to remember that many of these bailout loans were made at below market interest rates, and this enabled many of these financial institutions to rake in huge profits.<\/p>\n According to a recent\u00a0Bloomberg article<\/a>, the big banks brought in an estimated\u00a0$13 billion<\/a>\u00a0by taking advantage of the Fed\u2019s below-market rates\u2026.<\/p>\n While the Fed\u2019s last-resort lending programs generally charge above-market interest rates to deter routine borrowing, that practice sometimes flipped during the crisis. On Oct. 20, 2008, for example, the central bank agreed to make $113.3 billion of 28-day loans through its Term Auction Facility at a rate of 1.1 percent, according to a press release at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n The rate was less than a third of the 3.8 percent that banks were charging each other to make one-month loans on that day. Bank of America and Wachovia Corp. each got $15 billion of the 1.1 percent TAF loans, followed by Royal Bank of Scotland\u2019s RBS Citizens NA unit with $10 billion, Fed data show.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So once the financial crisis was over, were adjustments made to the financial system to make sure that this type of thing would never happen again?<\/p>\n Of course not.<\/p>\n Today, the \u201ctoo big to fail<\/a>\u201d banks are larger than ever.\u00a0 The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by\u00a039 percent<\/a>\u00a0between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.<\/p>\n So now they are more \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d than ever.<\/p>\n But this is what happens when we allow unelected central bank bureaucrats to run our financial system.<\/p>\n Most Americans do not realize this, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve is not part of the government.\u00a0 In fact, it is about as \u201cfederal\u201d as Federal Express is.\u00a0 The Federal Reserve has admitted that they are a privately owned institution in court many times, and you can see video of a Federal Reserve employee admitting that the Federal Reserve is privately owned\u00a0right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Federal Reserve<\/a>\u00a0is an out of control monster that is throwing around trillions of dollars whenever it wants to.\u00a0 Nobody should be allowed to do this.\u00a0 Nobody should be allowed to give bailouts to banks and corporations without the express permission of the U.S. Congress and the president of the United States.<\/p>\n This is a point that I made in my article\u00a0yesterday<\/a>.\u00a0 The Federal Reserve decided this week that it is going to provide \u201cliquidity support\u201d to Europe.\u00a0 If the American people do not like this move, that is just too bad.\u00a0 We do not get a say in the matter.<\/p>\n Are you starting to understand why I keep pushing the idea that it is time to\u00a0shut down the Federal Reserve<\/a>?<\/p>\n Please share this information about the secret 16 trillion dollar Federal Reserve bailout with your family and your friends.<\/p>\n If we can get enough people to wake up, perhaps there is still time to change the direction that this country is headed.<\/p>\n
\nMorgan Stanley \u2013\u00a0$2.041 trillion<\/strong>
\nMerrill Lynch \u2013\u00a0$1.949 trillion<\/strong>
\nBank of America \u2013\u00a0$1.344 trillion<\/strong>
\nBarclays PLC \u2013\u00a0$868 billion<\/strong>
\nBear Sterns \u2013\u00a0$853 billion<\/strong>
\nGoldman Sachs \u2013\u00a0$814 billion<\/strong>
\nRoyal Bank of Scotland \u2013\u00a0$541 billion<\/strong>
\nJP Morgan Chase \u2013\u00a0$391 billion<\/strong>
\nDeutsche Bank \u2013\u00a0$354 billion<\/strong>
\nUBS \u2013\u00a0$287 billion<\/strong>
\nCredit Suisse \u2013\u00a0$262 billion<\/strong>
\nLehman Brothers \u2013\u00a0$183 billion<\/strong>
\nBank of Scotland \u2013\u00a0$181 billion<\/strong>
\nBNP Paribas \u2013\u00a0$175 billion<\/strong>
\nWells Fargo \u2013\u00a0$159 billion<\/strong>
\nDexia \u2013\u00a0$159 billion<\/strong>
\nWachovia \u2013\u00a0$142 billion<\/strong>
\nDresdner Bank \u2013\u00a0$135 billion<\/strong>
\nSociete Generale \u2013\u00a0$124 billion<\/strong>
\n\u201cAll Other Borrowers\u201d \u2013\u00a0$2.639 trillion<\/strong><\/p>\n