02 December 2010

SHOCKER: European Banks took Hundreds-of-Billion$ in US Federal Aid. . . and We're Still Not Done Bailing Them Out

Carrying their military burden for 65 years apparently not enough to prop up the self-indulgent socialist superstate... 


After a $90B Ireland bailout by the European Central Bank that -like Greece- was substantially underwritten by the United States via the IMF, a new Federal Reserve report released late yesterday revealed multi-trillions-of-dollars has also been paid in bailouts to US and many foreign banks in the midst of the financial crisis:
New documents show that the most loan and other aid for U.S. institutions over time went to Citigroup ($2.2 trillion), followed by Merrill Lynch ($2.1 trillion), Morgan Stanley ($2 trillion), Bear Stearns ($960 billion), Bank of America ($887 billion), Goldman Sachs ($615 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($178 billion) and Wells Fargo ($154 billion). Merrill Lynch was later acquired by Bank of America, while Bear Stearns collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan. 

Foreign banks also benefited from the Fed's aid. They included Swiss bank UBS, which borrowed more than $165 billion, Deutsche Bank ($97 billion) and the Royal Bank of Scotland ($92 billion). 

Many of the individual loans the banks took were worth billions and had short durations but were paid back and renewed many times. Among the largest recipients were foreign central banks, such as the European Central Bank, Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. They borrowed huge amounts of dollars from the Fed to assist their own banks.
......
Barclays, a British bank, tapped the same facility 49 times. Its individual loans ranged from $300 million to $15 billion. 


And here's the kicker: the Obama Administration is now talking about sending still more IMF funds in an effort to stave off a collapse of the Euro... this from the same Obama that says we can't afford to uphold the Bush tax cuts...
Reuters reported at midday that an unnamed U.S. official said the U.S. would be willing to have the IMF give more money to support the European Financial Stability Facility. The U.S. is the IMF's biggest stakeholder. 

The EFSF is a 440 billion euro fund the Europeans put together as part of a broader 750 billion euros rescue package in May during the Greek debt crisis. The IMF has already pledged up to 250 billion euros.


But some conservatives -like Rep Mike Pence (R-Indiana)- are standing up and saying enough-is-enough: we don't have any money, the Chinese are on the brink of cutting us off, and the Fed had better lay off of that printing press before it explodes... that, or the dollar implodes:

Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.) said he would strongly oppose any attempts by the Obama administration to increase its contribution to the rescue fund aimed at mitigating the sovereign debt contagion affecting an increasing number of European countries. 

The lawmakers' comments came several hours after Reuters reported that a U.S. official in Europe had said that the administration was considering a larger IMF contribution to the EU bailout fund. 

A bigger fund would likely include a larger financial contribution from the IMF, which now is committed to spending as much as EUR250 billion on euro-zone rescue loans.


And if you haven't caught it by now... let Nigel Farange of the UK Independence Party tell you just what he thinks of the whole project as the Euro slides into the tank, just like he did while comprehensively dressing-down most of the top Eurocrats in Brussels... Conservative Hideout 2.0 has that clip -here- and it's a gem.