nc @nc: pawnbroker of last resort
--- osons espérer un semblant de transparence supplémentaire de la part de notre bonne vieille Bonne Nurse Suisse lorsqu'il s'agira de communiquer à quel prix les actifs d'ubs ont été acheté par le spv, autrement dit, lorsqu'il s'agira d'avouer dans quelle proportion le cadeau offert à ubs était énorme… http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/11/fed-stonewalling-on-giving-details.html ---
In case you somehow managed to miss it, our friendly pawnbroker of last resort central bank has been taking lots of crap collateral in return for loans under its alphabet soup of facilities. As we are learaning in our housing meltdown, collateral may not prove to be worth as much as it was said to be at the time the loan was made. Inquiring minds are curious as to what, exactly the Fed has taken, particularly as the numbers are becoming stratospheric.
Bloomberg has asked nicely for some of this information, and is now being forced to sue under to the Freedom of Information Act, and the Fed intends to fight! This ought to be a scandal, but after the TARP, the electorate is seems resigned to taxpayer money being thrown at floundering financial enterprises with little in the way of checks or prudence. If the Fed indeed was taking conservatively valued collateral as it has always claimed it was, there would be no reason for it to attempt to squash this request. The Fed's argument, as I infer, is the loans were made by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which isn't a federal agency and thus not subject to the FOIA.
