Filed under: video | Tagged: Federal Reserve, nationalization, public banking, repo market, Special Purpose Vehicles, state-owned bank, Steve Mnuchin, US Treasury | 9 Comments »
Treasury Takeover? Interview with Sarah Westall and Harley Schlanger
Posted on April 13, 2020 by Ellen Brown
Was the Fed Just Nationalized?
Posted on April 3, 2020 by Ellen Brown
Did Congress just nationalize the Fed? No. But the door to that result has been cracked open.
Mainstream politicians have long insisted that Medicare for all, a universal basic income, student debt relief and a slew of other much-needed public programs are off the table because the federal government cannot afford them. But that was before Wall Street and the stock market were driven onto life-support by a virus. Congress has now suddenly discovered the magic money tree. It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve is making over $4 trillion available to banks, hedge funds and other financial entities of all stripes; it has dropped the fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) effectively to zero; and it has made $1.5 trillion available to the repo market.
It is also the Federal Reserve that will be picking up the tab for this bonanza, at least to start. The US central bank has opened the sluice gates to unlimited quantitative easing, buying Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities “in the amounts needed to support smooth market functions.” Last month, the Fed bought $650 billion worth of federal securities. At that rate, notes Wall Street on Parade, it will own the entire Treasury market in about 22 months. As Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari acknowledged on 60 Minutes, “There is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve.” Continue reading
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: bailout, CARES Act, Federal Reserve, nationalization, public banking, repo market, Special Purpose Vehicles, state-owned bank | 17 Comments »
Banking Union Time Bomb: Eurocrats Authorize Bailouts AND Bail-Ins
Posted on March 29, 2014 by Ellen Brown
“As things stand, the banks are the permanent government of the country, whichever party is in power.”
– Lord Skidelsky, House of Lords, UK Parliament, 31 March 2011)
On March 20, 2014, European Union officials reached an historic agreement to create a single agency to handle failing banks. Media attention has focused on the agreement involving the single resolution mechanism (SRM), a uniform system for closing failed banks. But the real story for taxpayers and depositors is the heightened threat to their pocketbooks of a deal that now authorizes both bailouts and “bail-ins” – the confiscation of depositor funds. The deal involves multiple concessions to different countries and may be illegal under the rules of the EU Parliament; but it is being rushed through to lock taxpayer and depositor liability into place before the dire state of Eurozone banks is exposed. Continue reading
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: EU banking crisis, EU banking union, nationalization, public banking | 59 Comments »
WEB OF DEBT BLOG 
Banking Crisis 3.0: Time to Change the Rules of the Game
On CNN March 14, Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, said that American banks were on the verge of being nationalized:
The deposit base of the financial system has not actually been nationalized, but Congress is considering modifications to the FDIC insurance limit. Meanwhile, one state that does not face those problems is North Dakota, where its state-owned bank acts as a “mini-Fed” for the state. But first, a closer look at the issues.
Continue reading →Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Bank of North Dakota, banking crisis, banks, economy, Ellen Brown, FDIC, Fed, Federal Reserve, nationalization, public banking, SIGNATURE BANK, SILICON VALLEY BANK | 7 Comments »