The Federal Reserve Gave Libya $26 billion

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=ECE720E4-D5D6-4EFF-937C-DCADA784C3F9

Release: Why Did the Fed Bail Out the Bank of Libya?






March 31, 2011
How do Gadhafi’s Bankers Avoid U.S. Sanctions?

WASHINGTON, March 31 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.
The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law.
Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government.
“It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya,” Sanders said.
In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others, Sanders asked why the central bank made at least 46 emergency, low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corp., in which the Central Bank of Libya owns a 59 percent stake.
In the same letter, Sanders asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why the Treasury Department on March 4 let the Libya-controlled bank skirt the economic sanctions against Libya.
The senator also questioned why the Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp. is even allowed to operate branches inside United States. “Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya – an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions –to operate two banking branches within our own borders?” Sanders asked.
The Fed transactions were made public earlier this year as a result of a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law that forced the U.S. central bank to reveal which financial institutions it bailed out during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2010.
In another dubious twist, the Fed loans, at interest rates as low as 0.25 percent, relied on U.S. Treasury securities as collateral. In other words, at the same time that the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, it was lending money at a higher interest rate to another arm of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department.

Abolish the FEDERAL RESERVE

this should be the only real issue that matters...everything else is a fucking side-show

HarryCarey said:

Abolish the FEDERAL RESERVE

Click to expand...

Amen Brother Down with Fractional reserve banking. It has made slave out of the free and the brave!

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson

another Jefferson quote, it has nothing to do with this thread but a lot to do with this website:

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.
Thomas Jefferson

Charlie Ventura said:

The FED's day is coming. There is WAY too much pressure on congress to audit the FED for silence to remain the policy of the FED. The public is finally waking up to the biggest scam in history ... that being the 16th Amendment and The Federal Reserve Act.

Click to expand...

I believe that there was a victory in court about a lawsuit to make the Fed open it's books, but making them comply could be something else, again

They must have received counsel from Dick Cheney on avoiding transparency... go figure...

Mr Neutron said:

I believe that there was a victory in court about a lawsuit to make the Fed open it's books, but making them comply could be something else, again

Click to expand...

Serapis said:

They must have received counsel from Dick Cheney on avoiding transparency... go figure...

Click to expand...

see there? we DO agree on something

Ron Paul & Dennis Kucinich agree about the Federal Reserve Bank and central banking:

I tried to post a link to the video interview of both Congressman Paul and Kucinich but I can't get it to work, so... if you want to see it, go to foxbusinees.com (NOT Fox News, Fox Business is not the same tired old rhetoric, it's actually pretty good), find Judge Andrew Napolitano's show "Freedom Watch" and look at the video titled "Target: Federal Reserve"

I think you are mistaken, the Fed may have bailed out Foreign banks, but they did not give them any money. YOU and YOUR NEIGHBOR are the ones paying for it, the fed doesn't pay for anything, its all funded by the tax payer. Libya is small potatoes compared to some of the other banks.

i cannot believe that my taxes are paying for anything outside of the US. this makes me very angry. i thought i was paying for better teachers/firefighters/roads. if my US dollars keep on going out of the US i am going to stop paying taxes and work under the table! !!! COME GET ME IRS !!!

I havent formed an entirely concrete opinion on whether or not I like the Fed, so I'll play a little devil's advocate...

First, while most of the Fed hating in here seems to stem from the Feds seemingly irresponsible, misguided, (whatever you want to call it) discisions with money but it seems to me that they seem to be doing quite well. In fact, the Fed posted an $82 Billion dollar profit for last year.

I'll admit, the numbers are inflated a bit due to the Fed's activity during the recession (most recently QE2) but I'll also be the first to argue that QE2 was the right move for one very important reason: Inflation helps those who are in debt.

So, all of you hating on the fed - considering how many Americans are in debt in the wake of the housing bubble, etc - you are likely to hold debt... And if you do than the Fed's policies are helping you.

Now, I can see how silly it seems to loan money to a foreign entity only for another branch of government to "borrow" money from that same entity at a higher interest rate... but it's really not that simple. The Fed deals with short term loans at low rates, weeks or months in length - while the Treasury deals in Treasury bonds, which are 10 years in length and at higher rates(so time is the primary driver behind the difference in interest rates).

So one could imagine a scenario when a bank invests in U.S. Treasury bonds, runs into a pickle, and the takes short term low interest "emergency" loan(s) from the Fed to get through whatever problem they ran into. The short term loans will be payed off long before the Treasury bonds mature so they're hardly related. They didn't borrow from the fed so they could lend to the Treasury... it wouldn't make them any money because the Fed's loan would need to be repayed before they can make any money from the Treasury bonds.

However, none of this answers why two arms of the U.S government were doing business with these banks despite economic sanctions in place nor does it explain how or why they have banks on U.S. soil.

To be honest though, it seems most of Bernie's letter isn't much more than political grandstanding considering only one complaint (dealing with businesses under saction via the government they do business under) seems to have any merit.

Why would you like an entity that in place of the US government, usurps this power to create money then loan it to the US government at interest? IF our government hadnt handed this power over to the Private Federal Reserve we would not be starting out in debt and paying interest when new money is created. We had a 3 percent emergency income tax before this power was granted the Fed in 1913 and before that no Federal income tax. This tax was created the same year as the Fed was created in order to pay these bloodsuckers their interest. IF we didnt have a Fed reserve we wouldnt be in debt to the gils. Then they create a nice world war so they can loan us money for tanks and arms etc etc at interest. That is my two cents for why you should hate the Federal Reserve. google the money masters on youtube and find out how bad we have been fucked over. Then the more they got us in debt the higher the taxes to pay the debt.

mame said:

I havent formed an entirely concrete opinion on whether or not I like the Fed, so I'll play a little devil's advocate...

First, while most of the Fed hating in here seems to stem from the Feds seemingly irresponsible, misguided, (whatever you want to call it) discisions with money but it seems to me that they seem to be doing quite well. In fact, the Fed posted an $82 Billion dollar profit for last year.

I'll admit, the numbers are inflated a bit due to the Fed's activity during the recession (most recently QE2) but I'll also be the first to argue that QE2 was the right move for one very important reason: Inflation helps those who are in debt.

So, all of you hating on the fed - considering how many Americans are in debt in the wake of the housing bubble, etc - you are likely to hold debt... And if you do than the Fed's policies are helping you.

Now, I can see how silly it seems to loan money to a foreign entity only for another branch of government to "borrow" money from that same entity at a higher interest rate... but it's really not that simple. The Fed deals with short term loans at low rates, weeks or months in length - while the Treasury deals in Treasury bonds, which are 10 years in length and at higher rates(so time is the primary driver behind the difference in interest rates).

So one could imagine a scenario when a bank invests in U.S. Treasury bonds, runs into a pickle, and the takes short term low interest "emergency" loan(s) from the Fed to get through whatever problem they ran into. The short term loans will be payed off long before the Treasury bonds mature so they're hardly related. They didn't borrow from the fed so they could lend to the Treasury... it wouldn't make them any money because the Fed's loan would need to be repayed before they can make any money from the Treasury bonds.

However, none of this answers why two arms of the U.S government were doing business with these banks despite economic sanctions in place nor does it explain how or why they have banks on U.S. soil.

To be honest though, it seems most of Bernie's letter isn't much more than political grandstanding considering only one complaint (dealing with businesses under saction via the government they do business under) seems to have any merit.

Click to expand...

The Federal reserve is above all laws, all entity's foreign and domestic, it can not be so much as audited, it controls everyone from California to India because it prints the global currency among other things. It caused every major financial disaster in the history of the United States - It will soon enslave all of humanity, and your still on the fence about this for some reason mame? lol

Treasury Bills

Treasury bills are short-term government securities with maturities ranging from a few days to 52 weeks. Bills are sold at a discount from their face value.

Treasury Notes

Treasury notes are government securities that are issued with maturities of 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 years and pay interest every six months.

Treasury Bonds

Treasury bonds pay interest every six months and mature in 30 years.




Whoever said US Treasuries are only long term does not understand the largest most liquid market in the entire world.

NoDrama said:

Treasury Bills

Treasury bills are short-term government securities with maturities ranging from a few days to 52 weeks. Bills are sold at a discount from their face value.

Treasury Notes

Treasury notes are government securities that are issued with maturities of 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 years and pay interest every six months.

Treasury Bonds

Treasury bonds pay interest every six months and mature in 30 years.




Whoever said US Treasuries are only long term does not understand the largest most liquid market in the entire world.

Click to expand...

U.S. Treasury transactions are overwhelmingly long term in the form of the Treasury note - which starts at two years and ends at the extremely popular 10 year note(which was the specific length I was refering to). I said Bond, which is actually the 30 year note - but those are all but antiquated(in favor of the 10 year note), the Treasury didn't start issuing these again until 2006 and they remain fairly uncommon just as the very short term bills. My point is that the Treasury deals almost entirely in long term loans... Almost all foreign entities engaged in investing in U.S. Treasuries do so with long term notes.

However, the article doesn't say whether they're bills/notes/bonds so we probably wont ever know for sure whether we are seeing a scenario outlined in my original post,

one could imagine a scenario when a bank invests in U.S. Treasury bonds, runs into a pickle, and the takes short term low interest "emergency" loan(s) from the Fed to get through whatever problem they ran into. The short term loans will be payed off long before the Treasury bonds mature so they're hardly related. They didn't borrow from the fed so they could lend to the Treasury... it wouldn't make them any money because the Fed's loan would need to be repayed before they can make any money from the Treasury bonds

Click to expand...

Or if, like you seem to think, the bank was taking advantage of the Fed and Treasury (which honestly sounds a bit too much like a conspiracy theory considering this would have to be a huge oversight - or corruption on the part of the U.S. Fed+Treasury).

The Federal reserve is above all laws, all entity's foreign and domestic, it can not be so much as audited, it controls everyone from California to India because it prints the global currency among other things. It caused every major financial disaster in the history of the United States - It will soon enslave all of humanity, and your still on the fence about this for some reason mame? lol

Click to expand...

Yes, I am. As I've said before on these boards I believe that the fed has made some mistakes in the past - but I also believe they've shown to be quite useful (inflation in the early 80's blah blah).

Also, what about what things were like before the federal reserve? One thing to note is that although we have experienced more recessionary periods since the beginning of the Fed, we've actually spent less overall time in recession compared to between the Civil War and 1914 - having spent close to half of our time in recession before the fed and less than a quarter after.