No More Dough Til We Know Where It Goes!

Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com, has sent out a request for truthful information (what a novel concept). It seems that on January 13, Rep. Alan Grayson asked Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn to provide the names of the banks that received $1.2 trillion since September 2008.

Kohn refused.

Last week, AIG announced $61 billion in 4th quarter 2008 losses. Economist Nouriel Roubini called it "a nontransparent, opaque and shady bailout of the AIG counterparties." Still, the Fed refused to answer questions from Democrats like Chris Dodd and Republicans like Richard Shelby -- where did the money go?

Jane has asked people to sign a petition. The petition says: "Dear Members of Congress: The public needs to know where all our money has gone. Restoring public trust is critical in getting our economy back on its feet. We ask that you move swiftly to re-regulate and bring transparency to a financial system whose rules have been written by bank lobbyists for their own benefit. No additional bank bailout funds should be approved until that happens."

We're now being told it will take another $750 billion, in addition to the original $700 billion, to bail out the banks. We may not be able to stop the fraud, but it is important to be on some record somewhere as being fully opposed to this fraud. This is not to say that there are not problems, but how are we to know whether any of the right things are being done if we are kept from seeing. If your lack of oversight offends thee, pluck it out. Only you can prevent forest fires.

Sign the petition here.

BTW, the Federal Reserve Bank takes the position that if they tell to which banks and institutions they gave $4,000 from every man, woman, and child in this country ($1.2 trillion), the credibility of the financial institutions would be challenged. After the Bush Administrations wars of lies and deceit, you would think we would have learned our lesson. Maybe we actually attract what we deserve.