Under orders from Congress, the Fed on Wednesday released details of more than 21,000 transactions under the array of emergency lending programs and other arrangements it conjured up in response to the crisis.
The disclosures, which the Fed had resisted, offer the most detailed portrait of a panicky period in which the Fed lent money to banks, brokers, businesses and investors to keep the financial system functioning.
The documents show that some of the biggest names in American business were either coming to the Fed in need of a bailout, or trying to make money at a time when the Fed was trying to entice investors back into the markets. Among the latter were prominent investors and entrepreneurs like John A. Paulson and Michael S. Dell, and the pension funds of the Philadelphia Teamsters and Omaha’s teachers, who were betting they could profit if the rescue worked.
"At its peak at the end of 2008, the Fed had about $1.5 trillion in outstanding credit on its books. The central bank, in essence, pumped liquidity, the lifeblood of credit markets, into the circulatory system of an economy that was experiencing a potentially fatal heart attack." - NYT
Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VT] concluded: “After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed’s multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America,” he said. “Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations.”
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