DISCOUNT WINDOWS

DISCOUNT WINDOWS,

I was surfing online news outlets this morning, like I usually do, looking for a meaty subject matter to discuss with my loyal readers, when I came across a BLOOMBERG article titled "Foreign Banks Tapped Fed's Secret Lifeline Most at Crisis Peak." Of course the article was making reference to the 2007-2009 banking crisis that gripped the United States and the world as well.

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, fought a more then two year battle to shield crisis squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans, to protect  lending to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing cooperative financier and a company part owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

In scanning the article, the term DISCOUNT WINDOW kept jumping out at me, like it was a blue light special at my local K-Mart. I couldn't understand how we, (the United States) could be loaning money to other countries and business' when the economy here in America was seemingly going into the (tank). It just didn't seem right.

And I guess it wasn't, why else would the Federal Reserve Chairman wage a two year battle to keep secret who we were dealing with. When I say "we" I guess I mean "he" (Bernanke) because I'm sure that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't have been loaning money to foreign interests when we were hurting right here in America.

To my dismay I learned that a DISCOUNT  WINDOW  was not what I envisioned, it hit me as hard as the time I discovered that the Alamo didn't have a basement. The basement revelation came to me in the Pee Wee Herman movie, (Pee Wee's Great Adventure).

Economists, bankers, attorneys and Fed Reserve Chairmen are, after all, smarter then me, know how to asses money matters and can speculate how a failed bank or business will impact the United States, or the world beyond our shores. In many instances we, as citizens have to TRUST our elected officials and their appointees.

But when it comes time to (pony up) and reveal their actions, decisions and practices, most seem to have a hard time being forthright and hide, or shield their business behind vague laws, congressional actions or mandates from the President.

All manner of official sounding words or terms mask what the economic sector of our government is up to. Terms like Acid-Test Ratio, Cash Asset Ratio, Current Assets, Current Liability, Inventory Turnover, Key Ratio, Liquidity Ratio, Dynamic Current Ratio and Current Liabilities. What the hell, is this double speak, is this Greek, or is it (sleep speak), you know,  so boring it puts us to sleep, or is it (job security speak) terms so technical we need these experts to decipher the terms that they invented.

Back in late 2007 and 2008, banks and lending institutions were in a real bind, they didn't have enough money to conduct their business, they needed loans to carry on. Undoubtedly if the Fed hadn't of loaned them money, (bailing them out), there would have been bank failures. A large amount of that money, that money that would have been lost, was our money, so we would have failed.

So the Federal Reserve loaned banks in the United States money, (our money) to ensure that our money, (in the banks) wouldn't fail. Bad decisions were made, criminal decisions were made and few were brought to justice and the banking industry has went right back to the pre-2007 practices.

Although this isn't okay, it's our banking industry, right here in the good old U.S.A. and it's our right to make mistakes. But when an appointed banking official and his crony's decide to make loans in the billions of dollars to risk taking banks and business' in foreign countries and then try to hide the facts behind governmental procedures and flimsy laws, Americans need to stand up and voice opposion.

Old Ben "Moon face" Bernanke needs to go, just like his predacessor, Allen "Wrinkles" Greenspan did. Greenspan saw 2007-08 coming and didn't do a thing to avert it. Bernake put the United States in a terrible position by loaning our money to risky foreign institutions. Shame on you.