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edmund_the_destroyer wrote

While I agree with most of the article, I read the paper with the $29 trillion figure in the bank bailouts. The $29 trillion were artificially low interest loans that were repaid.

Say you want to borrow $100 and a bank will loan it to you in return for $115 in repayment and the Federal Reserve loan it to you for $100.50 in repayment. You borrow from the Federal Reserve and then repay the loan. Then the bailout amount is effectively $14.50 - the amount saved by not borrowing from a bank. The bailout amount is not $100.50.

Don't get me wrong, the financial industry bailouts in 2007-2010 were criminal. Many banks would have gone out of business if they couldn't get the Federal Reserve's low interest credit, and of course they should have.

But it's incorrect to write the headlines as though the Federal Reserve just gave domestic and foreign banks 29 trillion dollars and never got any of it back.

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