by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Every Wall Street bailout program that the Fed has created since September 17 of last year has, according to the Fed, been ostensibly created to somehow help the average American.
According to the Fed’s Term Sheet for the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), it’s going to “help meet the credit needs of consumers and businesses by facilitating the issuance of asset-backed securities.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but asset-backed securities and related derivatives are what blew up Wall Street in 2008, creating the worst economic downturn, at that point, since the Great Depression.
According to the Fed’s most recent H.4.1 filing, it has loaned a total $11.1 billion from TALF. Eleven percent of that money, $1.2 billion, went to a company that has 4 employees (outside of clerical workers) according to its filing with the SEC. Much of the money was loaned at an interest rate ranging from 0.75 percent to 1.26 percent. (Compare that to the high double digit interest rates that Wall Street banks continue to charge consumers on their credit cards.) The loans are set to expire in three years.