Correction: U.S. has a $30 Trillion Deficit

 $16 Trillion in Secret Fed Loans

Why Not Talk About this During Elections?

I find myself in strong opposition to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) about global warming and universal health care among other liberal issues. When you have conservativeU.S. Federal Reserve Bank  Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Ron Paul (R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders (I-VT) all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability. I do applaud Senator Sanders for supporting this important bill to impose audit regulations in financial reporting of Federal Reserve Bank transactions.

Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner & Fed. Chair. Ben Bernake"The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Included in this $16 trillion was $3 trillion in interest-free “loans” to foreign financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium that have not been repaid." So, add these $16 Trillion loans to our outstanding $14 Trillion U.S. Deficit for a total of $30 Trillion. Have we gone over the debt ceiling yet?  

"An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."  See Bernie Sanders' Newsletter: The Fed Audit for more details.

Instead of this one-time limited GAO audit, what about the Federal Reserve Bank releasing a full audit report annually like the other institutions under the Federal Reserve Bank's system?

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According to this GAO audit, $16.1 trillion in secret loans were made by the Federal Reserve between December 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010.  The following list of firms and the amount of money that they received was taken directly from the GAO Audit Report Page 131 (located on Page 144 in the PDF file).

Citigroup - $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC - $868 billion
Bear Sterns - $853 billion
Goldman Sachs - $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion
Deutsche Bank - $354 billion
UBS - $287 billion
Credit Suisse - $262 billion
Lehman Brothers - $183 billion
Bank of Scotland - $181 billion
BNP Paribas - $175 billion
Wells Fargo - $159 billion
Dexia - $159 billion
Wachovia - $142 billion
Dresdner Bank - $135 billion
Societe Generale - $124 billion
“All Other Borrowers” - $2.639 trillion

This report was made available to all the members of Congress, but most of them have been totally silent about it.