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Bloomberg News Sues Fed to Disclose Collateral From Taxpayer Loans to Banks

November 10, 2008 9:25 AM

Bloomberg News today filed a lawsuit to force the U.S. government -- specifically the Federal Reserve -- to disclose which securities it is accepting as collateral for $1.5 trillion of loans to banks, such as Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (This doesn’t include the $700 billion bailout package).

The document Bloomberg LP vs. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System can be perused HERE.

On May 21, Bloomberg asked the Fed to disclose the collateral. As Bloomberg News reports, the Fed said "on June 19 that it needed until July 3 to search out the documents and determine whether it would make them public. Bloomberg never received a formal response that would enable it to file an appeal. On Oct. 25, Bloomberg filed another request and has yet to receive a reply.

"The American taxpayer is entitled to know the risks, costs and methodology associated with the unprecedented government bailout of the U.S. financial industry,'' said Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News.

What gives? Why the secrecy?

- jpt

November 10, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (41)

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The Federal Reserve Bank is not Federal, nor a reserve, it is a private financial institution that charges interest on every dollar they print "for" the American People. This is the biggest ponzie scheme in the history of the world. I never thought bank robbers would be able to walk away as the "AUTHORITIES" stood by and handed them the loot.

Posted by: ed | Nov 15, 2008 12:35:26 PM

Take heart o'warrior in halls of truth
and smithe the demons in quest of sleuth.


From your friends in the Great White North.

Good Luck.

Posted by: Cariboo Ryder | Nov 15, 2008 1:48:17 AM

Where is Obama's leadership on this issue? Is he just going to hide in the corner and blame Bush for everything?

Some change.

Posted by: Kat | Nov 14, 2008 10:32:58 PM

The article states: "Bloomberg News today filed a lawsuit to force the U.S. government -- specifically the Federal Reserve..." However, the Federal Reserve is not a part of the US Government. It is a private company owned and run by rich European banksters. However, it is good to see someone take a stand against these thieves. Good luck.

Posted by: J | Nov 14, 2008 2:20:48 PM

George W and Cheney should be sent to prison. They are cowards, and traitors. The Federal Reserve Act needs to be abolished. We know these things. They are not above the law. Our government works for us. We pay their salaries. The list of posts here prove America IS waking up! It is time for the politicians and corporate leaders to pay for their crimes and take responsibility for their actions. We are being governed by upper-class fear mongering dictators who need to be removed from the public like any violent criminal. I feel it won't be long before another country decides they have had enough of our deliberate greed and bullying, and sends their military forces this way. Who will have our backs? The truth is, we will all be speaking another language soon if we don't shape up and pull ourselves together as a country that cares about its actions and its leadership. Give, don't take. It's the law of the universe and God is watching.

Posted by: Arkansas | Nov 13, 2008 2:20:21 PM

Because most people in this country are participants in one of three groups:
Group Number One: are those in near total control, based on their greed and well funded and artfully executed deception (3-5% of the population),
Group Number Two: are those who only believe what they been programmed to believe via the boob-tube, and the lies they are being taught by the public fool system (nearly all the rest of the population).
Group Number Three: are those who have done the research, have found the historical events, know the law, and have concrete evidence of how America has evolved to its current place in history, (less than 1% of the population).
So then, one question that may be fair to ask, which group or groups is truly responsible for the current and rapidly evolving Abomination?

Obama or McCain have never been any more than treasonist-puppets being financially minipulated by the same treasonist puppet-masters, who must keep the majority of Americans entertained so that they do not notice how they are been lied to, robbed, and killed for the sole benefit and profit of relatively small group of very wealth and powerful people, who are extremely greedy and competely demented control freaks.

This lack of reality by American's is what many people around the world (i.e., especially after 9/11), are just now beginning to understand and express openly about America. The rest of the world is tired of the mentally disconnected people they see in American. And based on the acts of violence that the rest of the world has experienced at the hands of a powerful and entirely out of (our) control U.S. Federal Government, people around the world are now beginning to fully recognize WHO and WHAT the real Abomination is.

IF the American people do not wake up NOW, and take back the control of this country and its military from the relatively small group of insane criminals who run things now, the the American people will surely perish under the military boots which these treasonist criminals finance and control today. There is a rapidly growing distain felt for America by many millions of people around the world.

This distain and distrust for America will become fully apparent when the world turn their backs on the American people when the banksters completely topple the false financial security blanket in 2009, that they have been propping up for years at our enourmous financial expense.

Surely you have been watching the stock markets and currency markets, and probably (like most), know little, if anything about the actual mechanics of the $700 billion bail-out. Which is nothing more than a frantic final and desparate effort at redistribution of wealth prior to the ultimate and soon to arrive financial collapse of the US dollar (i.e., fiat money). Ask yourself Tom, WHEN in your life, or in recorded history, has mankind every witnessed such things evolving this rapidly, and on this scale globally.

As we both appear to agree: Time WILL tell.

I honestly wish I could have a different perspective, but I learned to much. Tell me Tom: How does one unlearn what they have learned, or how does one undiscover what they have discovered?

I pray each day that a critical mass of the American people will invest the time to look, learn the facts, and then organize and take action as soon as possible.

But I clearly see a progression of events that's current path and resulting outcome is a reality that most Americans refuse to even look at, think about, let alone accept.

Frankly I predict the American people will soon repeat a horrible mistake from world history. I believe the American people will continue on their current path until the increasing pain they are being forced to endure, overwhelms their current and rapidly declining level of comfort. That is exactly how millions of Jews choose to act, just prior to Nazi's military machine force hauled them off in trains to the death camps!

Will history be repeated?
My heart and mind prays: NO.
My current analysis indicates: YES
My Spirit and Voice each day begs those I love around me to: Quickly invest the time to look, learn the facts, and then organize and take action as soon as possible.
The only TWO things the Evil Doers FEAR is: EXPOSURE of their agenda to the mass population, and the mass population raging against them to the point of extinction. Even though they have created a very effective web of control. There are only a few million of them and billions of us.

Do the math.... they CAN NOT WIN if We just stand up and all say with one voice: NO! This ends now! Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass go, and do not collect any money on the way to jail.

Posted by: Freeman | Nov 12, 2008 2:19:38 PM

Thanks Bloomberg, but it can't stop there the people need to get the Federal Reserve Act done away with. The Constitution calls for printing our own money, had we been doing this none of this would have happened. They create the debt and cause it all. They use debt notes, it's not money and to use them you have to pay them interest on it. That's why we have debt. The people can change this mob rule.

Posted by: Cathy | Nov 12, 2008 10:35:58 AM

From above the border to you north, George Bush appears to have dramatically accelerated the decline of the United States empire. In fact he may have actually destroyed it already, single handedly no less. In his bone marrow he is a multi-crime crimminal motivated purely by personal gain, with no regard to the costs. He and his clever little boys, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other clan members must be pursued, relentlessly like the deviant twisted meglomaniacs they are. They deserve their own brand of justice. They have destroyed everything that was good and hope-inspiring about America. At least an entire generation will pay for their crimes. Why shouldn't they?
Three igloo cheers for Bloomberg.

Posted by: Nutrition Sleuth | Nov 12, 2008 8:37:42 AM

Go get 'em & good luck! ! !

Posted by: Cynthia L. W. | Nov 11, 2008 9:42:50 PM

FINALLY! Somebody not only gives a damn, but is willing to step forth and call them out, on something that most of the country isn't even thinking about!
Pay attention people.
We have come to a slippery slope, and are losing ground very quickly.
By looking the other way, and ASSUMING that our country is working FOR us, we are doing nothing more than trusting a child in a room full of cookie jars!
Government, is by it's very nature greedy, and will continue to get away with whatever we allow.
Good work Bloomberg!

Posted by: Patriot | Nov 11, 2008 4:47:50 PM

Thanks Bloomburg for fighting.. no other controlled media will expose this type of corruption.

If our elected pets were really serious about fixing this country they would quit taking a penny of money from lobbyists and corporations and get FairTax
passed. This would restore our country very quickly.

We should yank their health insurance that we pay for, their retirements that we pay for, their perks that we pay for and cut their salary in half until they come to their senses and make it happen. WE deserve and have a right to better!


Posted by: bonny | Nov 11, 2008 1:23:16 PM

IF newly elected president Obama does not push to get this information out to the public, we will know REAL fast that it will be business as usual in Washington.

Posted by: JOEO | Nov 11, 2008 7:19:46 AM

this is the biggest criminal heist in history.


thank you bloomberg for finally reporting this.

Posted by: willyb | Nov 11, 2008 2:23:20 AM

Since the Declaration of Independence we have been warned abut the bankers' corruption. The constitution created a triumvirate of Executive, Congressional and Judicial, with NO SPECIFICATION OF 2 PARTIES TO RUN THE COUNTRY.

SINCE THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT ( AND THE INCOME TAX ) were passed in 1913, we have been the victim of the 2 party system, which the FED had used to control the money and thus the country, by playing the " good cop, bad cop game" to do it. When combined with the secrecy of the FED, we have finally let them ruin the country, as well as spreading the disease to the rest of the world. Thank you Bloomberg; you are big enough to get some action, if you can get by the corrupt judicial system. Good luck !

Posted by: patty Reynolds | Nov 10, 2008 11:04:08 PM

In the Money section of ABC, there is a piece about H1Bs. They don't allow you to talk about that stuff here, but it is as detrimental to our economy as Paulson and Cox have been. Just as Bloomberg tells about Paulson's backstabbing in their article about Fuld and Buffet (look it up), the money section gets to the facts. Paulson and Cox caused this financial crisis. Time to demand your 401K money back.

Posted by: Common Sense | Nov 10, 2008 10:43:28 PM

Check out the right on ODS

Posted by: Seriously | Nov 10, 2008 10:31:33 PM

In 2004, at the request of the major Wall Street investment houses, including Goldman Sachs, then headed by Paulson, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure.

People are pointing fingers all over the places regarding responsibility for our current economic crisis. The relaxing of these very regulations resulted in the current crisis. Paulson is just another Wall Street banker only at the next level. His interests are not geared towards the benefit of the American people.

All these bailouts are simply handouts to businesses that failed to manage themselves in a responsible way. When your company shuts down and lays people off like DHL announce today, your going to be left wondering where the American government is and how come nobody is saving your job.

It's easier to rob Uncle Sam than it is to rob a bank. There's a theme here, grow large enough, employee enough people, sell a ton of stock on inflated earnings and cooked books, and then fail. The auto industry wants billions to stay in business, billions more to protect their retirement accounts from collapse. Saving jobs is one thing, but retirement accounts are required to be funded, where exactly is this fund? We are going to bailout an industry that hasn't been responsible? Let them fold, time for accountability in the corporate world. Someone will purchase the infrastructure and create new jobs. I'd love to see KIA get GM in some fireside sale at ten cents on the dollar, serves them all right.

There's also another theme here, the bailouts are not saving the companies. How many times do you think you have to look at the books to realize the extent of the damage? The government went over AIGs books and had to know what was going on, and even if they didn't after the second request for cash you have to believe they would have given greater scrutiny to the condition of the company and now more cash needed to save them.

Are we such dopes that we buy into this, either the government lied about the condition of AIG or AIG lied about it's financial condition. Either way we keep shoveling cash at them like were trying to drain the treasury before we leave office.

Again, easier to rob Uncle Sam than to rob a bank, you get jail time for that.

Posted by: Mark | Nov 10, 2008 9:25:08 PM

I imagine the secrecy is because the companies involved are big enough that if news of their troubles got out, the stock market might react poorly and take another huge nosedive.

Honestly, I don't need immediate disclosure, but I need disclosure eventually. Quarterly is fine.

Posted by: johnTX | Nov 10, 2008 8:33:12 PM

bush TRICKED over 90% of the american people into supporting his invasion of iraq.

and since and as the truth comes out, we will find over 90% of the american people will support the notion that Bush
has been the worst president in us history.

Posted by: one planet, one people, please | Nov 10, 2008 7:52:50 PM

Thank you Bloomberg ... where are the main stream cowards hiding?

Posted by: knot2hazy | Nov 10, 2008 7:45:04 PM

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