At the instruction of Congress, the Federal Reserve has released the names of the approximately 21,000 recipients of $3.3 trillion in aid provided during the financial meltdown –without doubt the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, two of the top beneficiaries were Bank of America and Wells Fargo, who received approximately $45 billion each from the Term Auction Facility. American units of the Swiss bank UBS, the French bank Societe Generale and German bank Dresdner Bank AG also received financial assistance. The Fed posted the information on its website in compliance with a provision of the Dodd-Frank bill that imposed strict new financial regulations on Wall Street.
One of the biggest surprises on the list is the fact that General Electric accessed a Fed program no fewer than 12 times for a total of $16 billion. Although the Fed originally objected, Congress demanded accountability because there was evidence that the central bank had gone beyond their usual role of supporting banks. In addition, the Fed purchased short-term IOUs from corporations, risky assets from Bear Stearns and more than $1 trillion in housing debt.
Reactions to the revelations are both positive and negative. On the positive side, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said “We owe an accounting to the American people of who we have lent money to. It is a good step toward broader transparency.” Sarah Binder, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, disagrees, noting that “These disclosures come at a politically opportune time for the Fed. Just when Chairman Bernanke is trying to defend the Fed from Republican critics of its asset purchases, the Fed’s wounds from the financial crisis are reopened.”
Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) said “We see this (list) not as the end of a process but really a significant step forward in opening the veil of secrecy that exists in one of the most powerful agencies in government. Given the size of these commitments, it is incomprehensible that the American people have not received specific details about them.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is starting to look at ways to back off from the central bank’s heroic efforts to keep the nation’s economy afloat through the financial crisis of the past 18 months.
One of the nation’s healthiest metropolitan areas, Washington is benefiting from government hiring as the Obama Administration works to strengthen the nation’s financial system. The collapse of prominent investment banking firms such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns has triggered increased scrutiny of large banks and created a need for additional workers with auditing and investment expertise in government regulatory offices.
The worst-case scenario could see the tab rise as high as the $125 billion it cost the taxpayers in the early 1990s to bail out failed savings-and-loan institutions. The rosiest scenarios hypothesize that the short-term cash infusion might be recouped with little or no net cost to the taxpayers.