Buried on page 131 of their 266 page report was the information officials were so eager to hide from the taxpaying public.
As Americans struggled to make ends meet in the midst of financial meltdown, the Federal Reserve was shipping trillions of dollars overseas to foreign banks. In one year, Fed officials offered indiscriminate loans of $16 trillion to a host of European banks, as well as Wall Street titans like CitiGroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs.
The GAO found that 65 percent of those emergency loan handouts went to foreign companies and banks. On behalf of American taxpayers, the Federal Reserve bailed out not only the risky behavior of Americas banking industry, but Europes as well.
Its no wonder Fed officials have resisted transparency reforms so ardently. If they didnt blink at sending trillions of dollars overseas, what other risky decisions have they made behind closed doors?
The GAOs audit only extended to the Feds emergency programs and the bulk of the Feds policies remain closed to the public.
The fact that even a limited search resulted in such shocking revelations is further evidence that a transparent audit of the Fed, without any special exemptions, is the only way to truly discover what reckless decisions the Fed is making on taxpayers behalf. Whats more, the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul stands to instill more uncertainty in financial markets while increasing the unaccountable powers of the Fed.
