Bloomberg Sues The Fed For Disclosure

[Lionhearted]

Lost in the wake of Henry Paulson’s announcement Wednesday that Treasury is “changing direction” in how it doles out money in the bank rescue plan is a little-noticed lawsuit filed last Friday by Bloomberg LP, the business news wire service. It is suing the Federal Reserve Board’s governors for public records that would answer two simple questions: Who is receiving $2 trillion in Fed loans and what collateral are taxpayers getting to support them?

That’s trillion, with a “t.”

And, yes, as hard as it is to believe, taxpayers don’t know the identity of the borrowers to whom they are lending. They also don’t know what kind of junk — Stocks? Bonds? Three milk cows and a ’69 Camaro? — they are getting to collateralize the federal loans.

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/11/13/bloomberg-sues-the-fed-for-disclosure/

[democracy1st]

1. more lawsuits on the way these guys are complete idiots

[mike_c]

2. that's why they're working so hard to spend the money and obscure the trail....

The fat cats will laugh all the way to court.

[smkyle1]

3. Smart folks inside the Bush Treasury Department had to know...

...that the home mortgage crisis was going to blow up eventually.

Maybe they didn't know how big a mess we'd have, but they had to know something really bad was coming.

So did they just sit on what they knew, hoping to beat it out of town once the election was over or, worse, did they set it up this way so, first, a Democratic administration would be bankrupt and unable to pursue a progressive social agenda or that this rushed bailout would put a ton of money in the pockets of Wall Street fat cats?

It smells all ways.

[WhiteTara]

8. but they weren't required to care n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. This can work both ways:taxpayers don’t know to whom they are lending.)

I also don't know who is now holding my mortgage.
This could be good news if I default.
Courts are throwing defaults out, since the mortgage holder is unknown after all these trades.

[Lionhearted]

5. What if people started saying, to heck with my mortgage...

...somebody's going to bail me out.

We'd be in a world of hurt. People are getting laid off by the boatload right now.

You know the rich will always find a way to stay rich. It's the rest of us who'll be on the breadlines.

I've figure my job is safe for now, by I heard our pension fund lost $75 million in recent months. $75 million! A quarter of it's total value. Brother!

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Jobless mortgage holders are not looking for a bailout.

The Big investment banks and their cronies are the ones who created and got the bailout money after promising it would go to people who needed mortgage help.

My point was that an inadvertent result of derivative lending is that the owner of the mortgage is no longer known, and legally has to be known to foreclose.

Personally, we have no mortgage problems with our house.

[Lionhearted]

9. Right. But you know people don't pay full attention...

How else can you explain 10% of voters being undecided right before the Presidential election.

Sure, a few people may be so torn by issues they can't make up their minds. But most folks are just not paying attention.

And some of them may think they can get help refinancing their house whether they need it or not.

Most of us won't, of course, but there's certainly a bunch that would do it if they thought they could get away with it.

[orleans]

6. you left out the handful of magic beans.

glad to hear about the lawsuit.

[pokerfan]

10. Thank God it passed!