You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Economy
Partial Fed Audit Done: $16 TRILLION in secret bailouts
2011-07-25
Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418

#28  Since I've been furloughed from my resident engineer position at the FAA I can hang out all day online and be a pest. :)

Looking forward to it, bigjim, until they call you back.
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-07-25 23:54  

#27  The way I interpret that report, the only way to get to 16.5 trillion is if you count each overnight loan as a separate transaction, and add them all up. If that's correct, then the claim is just demagoguery.
Posted by: KBK   2011-07-25 22:02  

#26  that previous post by Lemeuelwatts-his-name was me, the Cookie Monster ate my nyme.....
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2011-07-25 21:04  

#25  the problem is that we are putting entirely too much faith in Biffy and Buffy, on their way to their morning lattes' getting involved with news; if whatever the MSM passes that can even be classed as news. they deal in sound bites. a good frined @ work thinks we have already passed the point of no return. i don't. in two weeks ( or less) i tink we will see who was right.
there are still too many kool aid drinkers out there among us......
Posted by: Lemuel Prince of the Platypi8406   2011-07-25 21:03  

#24  Debt goes exponential when future growth (in tax revenues) is insufficient to pay the interest on debt from past deficits.

That point was past years ago for most governments in the developed world.

That money has to eventually come from somewhere; lenders thru default, savers thru inflation, foreign debt holders thru currency depreciation, and a few others,
Posted by: phil_b   2011-07-25 20:14  

#23  These people will be hunted. After the coming World War that is.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man   2011-07-25 20:10  

#22  When did the US Govt stop being the largest buyer of Gold, Silver, + other Precious Commodities?

The Gold at Fort Knox, etc. - i.e. the former US "Gold Standard" - is supposed to be the backup for the $$$, i.e. the "Money Standard" - IFF VLAD PUTIN + MSM + IMF IS TO BE BELIEVED, THE US HAS NEITHER, NOT EVEN MOM'S OR GRANDMA'S PRETTY SILVER???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2011-07-25 20:01  

#21  My guess is gone or severely depleted.
Why else would they break their balls to avoid an indep. audit?
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2011-07-25 19:18  

#20  Is there any gold left in Ft. Knox or has it been looted?
Posted by: JohnQC   2011-07-25 17:48  

#19  Look for them to start auctioning off those prisoners again...
Posted by: mojo   2011-07-25 17:07  

#18  Couldn't get imbedded linky thing to work: full article with nastygraphs for those of us who are visually oriented:

http://www.slate.com/id/2299845/
Posted by: Mercutio   2011-07-25 16:05  

#17  Try this on for size:
from (of all places...Slate)"

"If the entire U.S budget were cut to zero, effective immediately—the military, all entitlements, the electricity bill for the Capitol—there still wouldn't be enough money to cover the payments on old debt that come due every day."

Posted by: Mercutio   2011-07-25 16:03  

#16  There is no "plan". You give them far, far to much credit.
They are in a tailspin, desperately trying to figure out how to salvage the ponzi scheme for at least a little longer. I have watched in disbelief for the last 3 years as politicians and too big to fail institutions were obviously going for broke. The game is coming to an end and they know it, they are just trying to make a stash to run away with when it all comes unwound. I'm sure they think they have an exit strategy.

Since I've been furloughed from my resident engineer position at the FAA I can hang out all day online and be a pest. :)
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2011-07-25 14:54  

#15  ..with the downsizing of DoD, I believe that will leave China as the largest armed force followed by the American public. Meanwhile, screwing with the troops pay and trying to employ the National Guard which is largely composed of the people the Beltway despises, doesn't make that a viable option.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2011-07-25 14:42  

#14  They're gonna need the army for martial law. You really think they can get it?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-07-25 14:33  

#13  I take back everything I have ever said about hollywood bookkeeping and major league sports accounting.

This is worse than I thought. It is a classic example of assuming a quick economic turn around generating the revenue to pay down this mess. Unfortunately the same people advocating this also advocating fiscal policies that chased jobs overseas and discouraged businesses from hiring as well as allowing banks to hold TARP money and not making the business loans for which it was intended. This is a scandal that makes Greece and Spain and Ireland look like small potatoes.

What do they think they are going to do? Confiscate all of the assets of every worker in the US? I still believe the end game is an intentional creation of a Weimar Republic style economic melt down, martial law and the creation of a dictatorship with youknowwho as the figurehead.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but every other scenario I play through doesn't explain what Pelosi, Reid and Obumble have done.
Posted by: Bill Clinton   2011-07-25 12:43  

#12  Essentially, the feds were loaning loaning out borrowed money at zero interest. The banks then turned around and bought short term treasury notes at a few percent interest. The interest difference being pure profit. A massive transfer of US taxpayer wealth to world financial institutions.

If a corporation tried this to boost profits, every official down to janitor would be in jail. Instead this gangster government in collusion with a gangster press stole, and continues to steal, tens of billions of taxpayer dollars for their favored contributors.
Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165   2011-07-25 12:08  

#11  Why does all this not surprise me?
Posted by: DarthVader   2011-07-25 11:13  

#10  HOW was the Fed able to loan out 16T bucks?

Lots of arm twisting on banks. The CEO of Northern Trust, for example, sed his bank was essentially forced to take TARP money. They didn't need it, but were told that "all banks were getting it" so that the ones that needed it wouldn't get a black mark from consumers.

They tried repaying it as soon as they could, but the Feds had no mechanism in place to take repayments.
Posted by: Pappy   2011-07-25 11:09  

#9  Another opinion on secret liabilities:
Boston University’s Professor Laurence Kotlikoff goes further: America is already bankrupt. Writing for Bloomberg, he explained that US debt is much greater than has been declared: “Congress has been very careful… to label most of its liabilities as 'unoffical’ to keep them off the books and far into the future… This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.”
Ponzi schemes survive as long as they are able to attract increasingly bigger contributions from ever more participants. Eventually they collapse under the burden of impossibility. This is where America is heading. It is beyond the point at which it can cut benefits or raise taxes sharply enough to prevent exponential debt growth.

Key word is 'exponential debt growth'.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2011-07-25 10:43  

#8  I look forward to seeing how Obumble will spin this one!
He won't need to spin it. The MSM has given the audit results NO COVERAGE.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2011-07-25 09:43  

#7  This was a 'partial' audit - some things were protected by Democratic Senators who turned the full audit into a partial audit.

I wonder what a full audit would reveal. Exactly what was hidden.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2011-07-25 08:52  

#6  The miracle of electronic banking. Credit them a trillion, debit Fed a trillion. It's an asset of the Fed. They will keep printing money until no one will take it.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2011-07-25 08:22  

#5  Just curious - HOW was the Fed able to loan out 16T bucks? Did they just 'create' it out of think air? Where did the money come from?
Posted by: CrazyFool   2011-07-25 08:10  

#4  Some of it has been paid back, according to what I've read. Most of the larger banks and insurers returned the money if for no other reason than to get get the Federales off their backs.
Posted by: Steve White   2011-07-25 08:00  

#3  What is there to spin loans were made and the people paid not them!
Posted by: Pheregum Panda9295   2011-07-25 08:00  

#2  Well, Shirley some of that has been paid back by now. Citigroup got 2.5 Trill, so that has to show up on some books.

The report also mentions loans that 'were outstanding', suggesting there are some that are no longer outstanding. In fact, the graph on page 137 suggests very nearly all of it is not outstanding.

Still, I look forward to seeing how Obumble will spin this one!
Posted by: Bobby   2011-07-25 06:34  

#1  Ya mean TRILYUUHN???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2011-07-25 00:23  

00:00