If the money had been flowing in the other direction, we might be calling it a bribe or at least wondering about money laundering. Imagine if a businessman or banker knew that a government official had an opportunity to loan money out at 5% and made a no interest loan to said government official of $1 million, would we not be VERY SUSPICIOUS of that $50K profit made by the government official?

A report by Bloomberg reveals that the Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner (at the New York Fed) secretly loaned over seven trillions dollars to arguably insolvent banks and financial institutions to keep them afloat, while concealing the scope of the lending from Congress and even member of the Treasury Department charged with allocating TARP bailouts.

Oligarchy is the Problem. We need a solution.

I believe that what the folks on the front line in Wisconsin needed most was a united national movement amplifying their grievances and demands. They needed a strong national voice framing a very different, more supportive message than the one they’ve been getting from their President and national Democratic leaders. What they got instead can only have hurt Wisconsin’s efforts.

The consistent message from the national Democratic party and President Obama is that “this is the era of austerity.”

Before Democrats trotted out their “Republicans are sinking the economy” strategy yesterday, about the only elites willing to tell the truth about the effect of near-term spending cuts were Bill Gross and Ben Bernanke. In his now-regular press conference following the two-day FOMC meetings, Bernanke reiterated himself:

Quantitative easing hurts small savers and retirees. It might work, and it’s the only thing left, since the conservatives won’t use fiscal policy. Let’s hope it works, because it is hurting a lot of people who did not cause the Great Crash.

Quantitative easing smashes the hopes of retirees with small amounts of savings. Congress and the Administration won’t help them or the enormous number of jobless Americans. That leaves the Fed as the only faint hope for improvement in the economy, and its tactics take money from retirees, or forces them into the stock market, and into the hands of the people who wrecked the economy.

The lesson of Japan’s descent into deflation is not about raising taxes on workers in a fragile economy. The lesson is not to leave the destiny of the nation in the hands of people who caused the problem and use their power to preserve their wealth and status.

FDL Contributor Bill Black scorched everyone with his testimony on the failure of Lehman Brothers when he testified before the House Financial Services Committee today.

The Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke, intends to fight to preserve the bureaucratic power of the Fed. We know the Fed failed to exercise its responsibilities before the Great Crash, to the detriment of everyone in society, except the financial elites. He should count himself lucky to have a job.