Video - Sen. Bernie Sanders scolds Helicopter Ben
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More clips from this day of testimony are here...
Text from Youtube page -- Great exchange! Bernie demands to know who got the $2.2 trillion in loans from the Fed. Bernanke won't tell him. He's also angry that banks that get taxpayer funds for nothing, are charging credit card customers 25% interest. Also discusses A.I.G. and credit default swaps.
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Related story...
FED Is 'Central Bank of the World' After UBS, Barclays Aid
Federal Reserve data showing UBS AG and Barclays Plc ranked among the top users of $3.3 trillion from emergency programs is stoking debate on whether U.S. regulators bear responsibility for aiding other nations’ banks.
UBS was the biggest borrower under the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, with $74.5 billion overall, more than twice as much as Citigroup Inc., the top U.S. bank recipient, according to the data released yesterday. London-based Barclays Plc took the biggest single amount under another program that made overnight loans, when it got $47.9 billion on Sept. 18, 2008.
“We’re talking about huge sums of money going to bail out large foreign banks,” said Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent who wrote the provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that required the Fed disclosures. “Has the Federal Reserve become the central bank of the world? I think that is a question that needs to be examined.”
The first detailed accounting of U.S. efforts to spare European banks may add to scrutiny of the central bank, already at its most intense in three decades. The Fed, which released data on 21,000 transactions, said in a statement that its 11 emergency programs helped stabilize markets and support economic recovery. The Fed said there have been no credit losses on rescue programs that have been closed.
The growth of the U.S. mortgage-backed securities market and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency enticed overseas banks such as Zurich-based UBS to buy assets in the country before 2008. They paid for the holdings with U.S. dollars, and when funding seized up, the Federal Reserve refused to take the risk that European firms would unload the assets and further depress markets for housing-related investments.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-12-02/federal-reserve-may-be-central-bank-of-the-world-after-ubs-barclays-aid.html
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Check out this slideshow - 25 Great TSA Cartoons
I hand-picked the best 25 from a few hundred. They are in no particular order.
I spent a few hours putting this together, so your clicking is appreciated.
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