Well, Well, Well – $9,000,000,000,000 MISSING From The Federal Reserve SHOCKING FOOTAGE

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• I haven't got sound at work today, is it "really" missing, or more of an accounting error? Or is there even any way to tell?

  Funny though, not to kick the bridge and wake up the trolls, but as much as libertarian types object to "big government" etc., this is one matter which the government has pretty much privatized. I would think that they'd be more supportive of the notion. I mean yes, there's shenanigans going on and they need to be watched more closely, but can we imagine how much WORSE it might be if this was a regular government bureau?

  And btw, paper money originated as the currency of private banks, that's why they were originally called "banknotes." "The Fed" isn't really new in concept, just in size and influence.

  • I don't think Libertarians, at least not this one, want the money printing controlled by a private banking enterprise that makes billions off of it. Isn't Ron Paul the one that is always pushing for an audit?

    • Additionally, Bernie Sanders got the Ammendment into the Dodd-Frank bill that triggered first-ever audit of the Fed.. i don't think there was a single vote against it in the Senate.. Unfortunately i think that was a one-off (to get bipartisan action, scoped around financial crisis). I don't know if Ron Paul's bill got anywhere, but it should

• Anyone seen Jon Corzine lately?

  • Him, Jimmy Hoffa, and Jim Morrison are hiding on some island in the South Pacific.

    • They are looking for Hoffa again in the Detroit area. They were looking under someones driveway this time.

• Maybe they should take a look in n0bama's golf bag?

  • Or his freezer?

• The Federal Reserve is the most corrupt group no matter which side of the aisle you are on. They are not elected officials. They have blanket, total control over our money - and worst of all. they are making really bad decisions about it!

  Watch Bernanke in front of congress sometime - he is all smug and supercilious no matter who is questioning him. He acts like "how DARE you question me?" It is so infuriating, and yet, most people have no clues what they even drone on about. Then again, most people don't understand what a balance sheet is, either.

  • I'll give Greenspan credit. He may have been mind numbingly boring, but he wasn't smug.

    • Maybe not smug but he was wrong as hell. His easy credit policies led to the housing bubble as surely as anything Fannie and Freddie did. In fact, the low rates made those home mortgages possible to begin with.

      • Sidekick, just wondering, since I haven't studied it nearly as much as you have. Wouldn't low rates make it so that more people could actually, realistically, qualify? Lower monthly payments=more people able to make those payments? I thought it was the orders to finance companies to give more loans, regardless of interest rates, to people who couldn't pay them back, that caused the problem. Which, of course, Obama wants to do more of.

        • No, low rates mean that banks are more careful, as the amount of interest that they can get away with charging is lower. When interest is at 3%, we're all looking for 2-7/8% -- when it's 10%, we might not catch an 11% loan. Human nature. Smaller pie.

          Banks don't look at the interest as much as they look at the whole risk/reward/profitability picture.

        • That and the fact that the banks didn't underwrite properly (if at all) during the boom and they had no incentive to since they could lay those mortgages off on Fanny and Freddie.

          The advent of negative amortization loans with no supporting documentation was a crime committed against every responsible home buyer who had his equity devastated by the federal government's feat of social engineering.

        • The biggest problem was the interest only loans. They were meant only for short term investors, to allow them to not tie up too much capital, but they were sold to low income buyers as a chance for them to earn more money to afford a real mortgage.

        • I think: ".. as a chance for them to earn more money to afford a real mortgage."

          should read: ".. as a fig leaf allowing banks and borrowers alike to pretend the financial situation preventing them from buying more house than they could afford could somehow magically change before the principal comes due."

          Possibly through the usual liberal mechanism of unicorn farts or something.

        • Sorry perlcat, errant stylus.
          Yes, that is a better description.

        • I bought my house in Joshua Tree in 1995. I was qualified for the amount from an ordinary lender, but when they found out that the house was on a dirt road, (my preference), they backed out. It was a VA repo, had sat empty for a couple of years.

          Right after FHA backed out, I got a letter from the VA that said that I could have a VA loan, even though I'm not a veteran. I didn't even know they could do that. We ponied up a few thousand for closing, and moved in two weeks later. The loan was sold to Countrywide within a month.

        • But, am I right in saying that these misdeeds weren't so much the fault of a lack of regulation, as government pushing finance companies to do the wrong thing?

        • Alien, that is partly true. We were also "bundled", but didn't change hands that many times.
          It's normal for lenders to do that. Its not because of sub - prime loans, they are bundled by loan type when resold.

        • Yes Flash, that is right. My wife was a mortgage closer, and told me countless times of people that couldn't come up with $500 at the closing table, people that should have never gotten a mortgage, but the company was forced to give them the loans because of government regulations.

        • I'm just going to point out that there are moral hazards in having Congress vote for things where they don't have to *directly* spend money.

          The idea can be dumber than a turd sandwich, but as long as nobody figures out that these jokers are making their nation poorer and more miserable instead of helping, they'll continue with it.

        • the CRA was only responsible for a small fraction of sub-prime market.. something on order of 20-30%

          we bought our house in 2004, and by 2006 the loan had changed hands 5-6 times before WellsFargo snagged it.. I should try to research, but i'd wager that some of those transactions were part of bundled securities, probably rated AAA (note, we weren't sub-prime, either)

      • Maybe that's why he was so boring, so people would take longer to figure out what he was doing.

• What's the bid deal? Nine trillion is barely six months of Obama family vacations.

  • It's a weekend at Shake Shack for Moochelle.

• Fire up the printing presses!

  • Why? They can & are just DIGITIZING our currency with 0s & 1s. The Fed needs to be audited & it needs to happen now.