Wednesday, December 07, 2011

America's Next Tarp Model

What I just love about Jon Stewart is that he perfectly projects the non-partisan, "They did WHAT?" amazement that so many of us feel about the government's economics programs. ANYTHING could be said at this point, and we would believe it. We might break a pencil, but we'd believe it.


UPDATE: As much as Jon is having here, it is useful to point out that the actual amount, by any reasonable accounting standards, was far less. And one can't really say it was "secret," as much fun as that is to say. The painfully earnest (but scrupulously correct) Jay Hamilton explains why these two things are true.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:32 PM, December 07, 2011

    OK. Now that you've contributed to the spread of this 7.77 trillion $ "news", I wonder what you make of James Hamilton's post in which he argues that the Bloomberg claims are "outrageously inaccurate" and that "anyone who tells you that the Federal Reserve secretly loaned $7.77 trillion to banks is spreading a lie."

    http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/12/777_trillion_in.html

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  2. Jon P12:06 AM, December 08, 2011

    They weren't overnight or weekend loans, that racked up to 7.7T by virtue that they weren't all unique dollars?

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  3. Mungowitz8:19 AM, December 08, 2011

    Well, yeah, it was at most $1 trillion. Only about the size of Medicare and military spending combined. Only 40% of the US federal budget, completely off the books.

    Are you really going to quibble like this, guys? The fact is the money was given to banks for free so they could buy Treasury bonds for 3 %. There was no chance of any of it being loaned out.

    I'm not an "end the Fed" guy. But a huge amount of cash was given to banks. Now people can decide if it was a good or bad thing. Until now they did not even know. I don't see why "audit the Fed" is a silly idea.

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  4. Jon P4:24 PM, December 08, 2011

    Whaddya want from me, I'm a hypocrite Republican, and being noble and gracious doesn't seem to go as far as it used to...

    Of course you're right, it is still a huge honking sum of money, and auditing the Fed would be a wonderful idea. I'd also like to see the candidates all come on stage with a printed copy of the federal tax code, unless they come up with their own complete plan, and print and carry that instead.

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