Ethics

More Secrecy in Bailout Payments

By Ed Brayton

Bloomberg News reports on the total lack of transparency on who is getting hundreds of billions of our tax dollars in loans given to troubled companies in addition to the bailout plan funds:

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).