you mean it isn't already public knowledge???

[rone]

God bless Bernie Sanders:

A U.S. senator berated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday for refusing to name banks that borrow from the central bank and introduced legislation that would require public disclosure.

[...]

When Sanders pressed on whether Bernanke would name the firms that borrowed from the Fed, the central bank chairman replied, "No," and started to say that doing so risked stigmatizing banks and discouraging them from borrowing from the central bank.

OH NOES!!!  Poor stigmatized banks don't need the further shame!! :(((

Comments

[eagle]

Well, to play devil's advocate, the government has been very careful since the Great Depression to never disclose which particular banks are in financial trouble in order to avoid provoking a run on vulnerable institutions that could otherwise be salvaged. The FDIC doesn't disclose the names of banks that are in trouble and in danger of being shut down until they actually shut them down and have arranged the transition either, and this is a somewhat similar case.

That's a spectacularly bad way of explaining it, though.

it points in the right direction...

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

since the FDIC is also a quasi-NGO like the Fed.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing we've learned from this crisis, it's that all the banks are so tightly entwined with each other that trying to single one out would be unfair and pointless. Besides, we already know Citigroup and AIG are fucked; how much worse would full disclosure be at this point?

think about it....

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

on the reality side of the line, the Fed NEEDS to maintain a level of independence from the Central Government.

Then there is the problem of 'self fulfilling profacy' - where people pull out of a bank, so the bank has to sell more assets at fire sale pricing, and then folks say, oh look they are fire sale selling... and. then...

The ultimately comedy is that this is what happened in 'developming markets', so they learned the hard lesson - hold a whole lot of ferrign devil currency, so that their speculators will not make a run on the national currency...

So if folks start hording currency, then the supply of money drops, and then when the central banker pushes out more money, and it gets sucked up, and the rate finally hits ZERO - this is known as a liquidity trap....

To get us out of this, in classical keynesian model if for the Demand of Last Resort to step up to the plate and demand things - like a new Great White Fleet - cf Mahan, 'Sea Power' - the grand navalist, then look at how the creation of the american made steel, in american ship yards, would do more than merely give us a Big Stick for the Caribean... but would help america out of the 1890's Depression in ways that the mere Spanish American War had not fully done...

{ not like this is the first time the nation has seen a classical nineteenth century bank run... }

So what would be more interesting is getting a fuller sense of the 'not actually banks' that now want to be banks for the bail out...

ah yes... but this way of course takes us back to the reality based community, and that of course causes Capital Gains Taxes, which causes GAY MARRIAGES!!!!

Re: think about it....

[epileptikitty.livejournal.com]

Really we need to increase the death tax - because before it takes effect thousands of rich old bastards will be strangled by their children, creating a windfall.

Re: think about it....

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

I think you the start of a whole new age new wave disco dance craze for NeoCons....

More Death Taxes to validate the Need to put the Old Codgers on The ICE FLOES.... So as to restore the correct implementation of Survival of The Fitest, just as Jesus would want it....

Next step - Memo to Rush...

[h-postmortemus.livejournal.com]

That is of course the standard excuse. In reality, since all the public banks have to report publicly on their finances, we already know which ones are fucked.

The real reason to not report this is of course to hide banks that are feeding from the public trough that don't need to do so.