Tuesday, November 29, 2011

What vs. Why

I got a pack of material in the mail yesterday from the Ron Paul campaign and it makes for an interesting read. Much of what Paul proposes makes sense, but there's almost no way any of it could actually happen, given that it would require cleaning out pretty much everyone who works in the federal government.

One thing that is especially interesting is the oft-proffered notion that it is time for an audit of the Federal Reserve. The Paul supporters I've encountered are especially keen on this idea. According to this website, the GAO has already taken a gander at some Fed activity and has found the following:

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows..

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places
Is this sinister? It's difficult to know, really. What it really shows is the extent of our financial problem. The key thing that's missing from this information is why such loans would be necessary. That's really the important question.

6 comments:

Gino said...

50yrs from now, we are going to wake up as a nation as realize that Ron Paul wasnt the crazy one.

by then, it will be too late.

Mr. D said...

He’s not crazy at all, Gino. But he’s 75 years old and there are millions of people who benefit from the status quo and will fight like hell to prevent the changes Paul outlines. The experiences of Wisconsin and Ohio, to say nothing of what’s happening in Greece, show how difficult it’s going to be to get any sort of reform done.

Night Writer said...

You have to start somewhere, sometime.

Mr. D said...

You have to start somewhere, sometime.

Agreed.

Bike Bubba said...

It's an interesting question that with this amount of money at their disposal--I'm adding up about GDP--in the banking sector alone, what is the return on this money? In the same way, the net value of derivatives is something like $700 trillion these days. Now I know that derivatives have their value derived from other securities, including derivatives, so there is a lot of double and dodecatuple counting here, but wow--when something goes wronger than it already is, that's a big house of cards to collapse.

Which explains the opposition to Paul, whose policies would collapse this house. (for reference, I like his domestic ideas, but mostly reject his foreign policy--it's simply too naive)

Brad Carlson said...

50yrs from now.....

....I will have most likely moved on to Glory, praise the Lord!