Monday, August 23, 2010

Show Us the Borrowers!!

A federal appeals court has declined to reconsider its March ruling that the Federal Reserve must disclose documents regarding borrowing from its discount window and other “last resort” lending programs, reports WSJ.

This means that as far as the appeals court goes, the Fed must disclose who it loaned money to via the discount window.

Bloomberg LP’s Bloomberg News and Fox News Network LLC’s Fox Business Network separately sued the Fed, seeking access to documents related to discount window usage during the financial crisis.

The Fed can still appeal to the Supreme Court and is likely to do so.

2 comments:

  1. Getting a peak at the collateral posted at the window would also be an eye opener. Thanks to bankruptcy court records, we know that as Barclays was needling JPM, the NY Fed was at one point custodian of stocks of bankrupt companies (Sharper Image, WHX, Tower Automotive, Federal Mogul, Intermet, Finlay Jewelers, etc.) as it was facilitating tri-party repos amongst Barclays, JPM and the finally-bankrupt Lehman.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/rare-glimpse-feds-discount-window-courtesy-brewing-lehman-barclays-scandal

    The Fed would much rather spoon feed us the holdings of its prized Maiden Lane portfolio now that it has purged the worst from it:

    http://english.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/08/blackrocks-madoff-like-valuations-push.html

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  2. Here's Jim Sinclair's commentary from jsmineset.com:
    This is a straw man to hold up and knock down, a common political strategy.

    Note that the so called fight is over banks. What you want to see is the non-banks that received bailouts.

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