Federal Reserve's 2008 Bailout: $ 9,000.000,000.000 Loaned At Below 1%

12-02-2010 • csmonitor.com/USA

The numbers are staggering, encompassing more than a dozen emergency programs set up starting in 2007 or 2008. In one program alone the Fed doled out nearly $9 trillion in funds to borrowers such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, largely at interest rates below 1 percent. (This program involved overnight loans, so the amount of Fed credit outstanding at any single point in time was much smaller.) Other programs, with longer-term loans also measured in the trillions of dollars. The Fed actions were just part of a larger array of government bailouts for the financial industry, which were deeply unpopular with most Americans. Rescue programs run outside the Fed included insurance-style backstops for bank debts and the investments from the Treasury's $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program). Despite the public outrage stirred by the actions to prop up firms like Citigroup and AIG, the Fed's biggest mistakes may have come before the recession rather than in response to it.