{"id":1218,"date":"2015-03-03T19:53:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T19:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/?p=1218"},"modified":"2015-03-04T17:57:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T17:57:32","slug":"secret-fed-loans-gave-banks-13-billion-undisclosed-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/secret-fed-loans-gave-banks-13-billion-undisclosed-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion, Undisclosed to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>A special thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg.com<\/a> for the release of this material, and sending the documents to The Black Vault for archiving<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1>Introduction<\/h1>\n<p>Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion which was undisclosed to Congress.\u00a0 Bloomberg received these pages after filing a FOIA lawsuit, and won, which they then sifted through to create their massive report and expose, which is reprinted below. The Black Vault has archived the document release in its entirety, with full credit and special thanks to Bloomberg for their permission.<\/p>\n<p>Please Note: This is a large page to load.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><a name=\"FOIADocuments\"><\/a>FOIA Documents<\/h1>\n<p>The following documents were received from Bloomberg, and republished here, with permission.\u00a0 Please note, these are listed and programmed in how they were received.\u00a0 The Black Vault has made them &#8220;indexed&#8221; (so you can search them, and they will be archived by the search engines) but other than that, there are no changes, except for TheBlackVault.com watermark.<\/p>\n<h2>FOIA Request No. 2008-356<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080404.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080404.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080407.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080407.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080408.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080408.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080409.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080409.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080410.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080410.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080411.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080411.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080414.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080414.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080415.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080415.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080416.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080416.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080417.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080417.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080418.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080418.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080421.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080421.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080422.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080422.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080423.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080423.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080424.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080424.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080425.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080425.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080428.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080428.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080429.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080429.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080430.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080430.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080501.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080501.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080502.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080502.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080505.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080505.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080506.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080506.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080507.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080507.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080508.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080508.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080509.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080509.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080512.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080512.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080513.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080513.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080514.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080514.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080515.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080515.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080516.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080516.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080519.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080519.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202008-356\/rpt_PC_Matur_20080520.pdf\">rpt_PC_Matur_20080520.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>FOIA Request No. 2010-282<\/h2>\n<p><em>The following will take you to a list of documents. Click on any to view, then click BACK to return to this page.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%201,%202%20and%203\/\">Category 1, 2 and 3\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%201\/\">Category 1\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2010\/\">Category 10\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2011\/\">Category 11\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2012\/\">Category 12\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2013\/\">Category 13\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2014\/\">Category 14\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2015\/\">Category 15\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%2016\/\">Category 16\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%202\/\">Category 2\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%203\/\">Category 3\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%204\/\">Category 4\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%205\/\">Category 5\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%206\/\">Category 6\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%207\/\">Category 7\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%208\/\">Category 8\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Request%20No.%202010-282\/Category%209\/\">Category 9\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>FOIA Requests Nos. 2009-73 and 2009-106<\/h2>\n<p><em>The following will take you to a list of documents. Click on any to view, then click BACK to return to this page.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%201,%202%20and%205\/\">Category 1, 2 and 5\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%201\/\">Category 1\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%202\/\">Category 2\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%203\/\">Category 3\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%204\/\">Category 4\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%206\/\">Category 6\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Category%207\/\">Category 7\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/documents.theblackvault.com\/documents\/financial\/bloomberg\/FOIA%20Requests%20Nos.%202009-73%20and%202009-106\/Not%20Categorized%20-%20Additional%20Responsive%20Information\/\">Not Categorized &#8211; Additional Responsive Information\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><strong><a name=\"additional\"><\/a>Additional Data Releases<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>The following links are also recommended for researching the material above.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/reform_transaction.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Usage of Federal Reserve Credit and Liquidity Facilities<\/a> &#8211; Main page on data released by the Fed in December 2010 in response tomandates in the Dodd-Frank Act<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/monetarypolicy\/bst_tranche.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Data released by the Fed in July 2011 in response to a subsequent FOIArequest related to the Fed&#8217;s ST OMO program<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><a name=\"Bloomberg\"><\/a>Bloomberg&#8217;s Report<\/h1>\n<div id=\"story_meta\"><cite>By Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz &#8211; Nov 27, 2011 4:01 PM PT<\/cite><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/federal-reserve\/\">Federal Reserve<\/a> and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed didn\u2019t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn\u2019t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/bloom.bg\/n69kTY\" rel=\"external\">loans<\/a> at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed\u2019s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.<\/p>\n<p>Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.<\/p>\n<p>A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Change Their Votes\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWhen you see the dollars the banks got, it\u2019s hard to make the case these were successful institutions,\u201d says <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/sherrod-brown\/\">Sherrod Brown<\/a>, a Democratic Senator from Ohio who in 2010 introduced an unsuccessful bill to limit bank size. \u201cThis is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and Occupy <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/wall-street\/\">Wall Street<\/a>. There are lawmakers in both parties who would change their votes now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The size of the bailout came to light after Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, won a court case against the Fed and a group of the biggest U.S. banks called Clearing House Association LLC to force lending details into the open.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed, headed by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, argued that revealing borrower details would create a stigma &#8212; investors and counterparties would shun firms that used the central bank as lender of last resort &#8212; and that needy institutions would be reluctant to borrow in the next crisis. Clearing House Association fought Bloomberg\u2019s lawsuit up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the banks\u2019 appeal in March 2011.<\/p>\n<p><strong>$7.77 Trillion<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he \u201cwasn\u2019t aware of the magnitude.\u201d It dwarfed the Treasury Department\u2019s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.<\/div>\n<p>\u201cTARP at least had some strings attached,\u201d says Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, referring to the program\u2019s executive-pay ceiling. \u201cWith the Fed programs, there was nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bankers didn\u2019t disclose the extent of their borrowing. On Nov. 26, 2008, then-<a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=BAC:US\">Bank of America (BAC)<\/a> Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed \u201cone of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world.\u201d He didn\u2019t say that his Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm owed the central bank $86 billion that day.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Motivate Others\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders in a March 26, 2010, <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/files.shareholder.com\/downloads\/ONE\/1510134567x0x362440\/1ce6e503-25c6-4b7b-8c2e-8cb1df167411\/2009AR_Letter_to_shareholders.pdf\" rel=\"external\">letter<\/a> that his bank used the Fed\u2019s Term Auction Facility \u201cat the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system.\u201d He didn\u2019t say that the New York-based bank\u2019s total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion on Feb. 26, 2009, came more than a year after the program\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/howard-opinsky\/\">Howard Opinsky<\/a>, a spokesman for <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=JPM:US\">JPMorgan (JPM)<\/a>, declined to comment about Dimon\u2019s statement or the company\u2019s Fed borrowings. <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/jerry-dubrowski\/\">Jerry Dubrowski<\/a>, a spokesman for Bank of America, also declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed has been lending money to banks through its so- called discount window since just after its founding in 1913. Starting in August 2007, when confidence in banks began to wane, it created a variety of ways to <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/newyorkfed.org\/markets\/Forms_of_Fed_Lending.pdf\" rel=\"external\">bolster<\/a> the financial system with cash or easily traded securities. By the end of 2008, the central bank had established or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to banks, securities firms and corporations that couldn\u2019t get short-term loans from their usual sources.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Core Function\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cSupporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of central banks,\u201d says William B. English, director of the Fed\u2019s Division of Monetary Affairs. \u201cOur lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Fed has said that all loans were backed by appropriate collateral. That the central bank didn\u2019t lose money should \u201clead to praise of the Fed, that they took this extraordinary step and they got it right,\u201d says <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/phillip-swagel\/\">Phillip Swagel<\/a>, a former assistant Treasury secretary under Henry M. Paulson and now a professor of international economic policy at the University of Maryland.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Information on which banks borrowed, when, how much and at what interest rate was kept from public view.<\/p>\n<p>The secrecy extended even to members of President George W. Bush\u2019s administration who managed TARP. Top aides to Paulson weren\u2019t privy to Fed lending details during the creation of the program that provided crisis funding to more than 700 banks, say two former senior Treasury officials who requested anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to speak.<\/p>\n<h2>Big Six<\/h2>\n<p>The Treasury Department relied on the recommendations of the Fed to decide which banks were healthy enough to get TARP money and how much, the former officials say. The six biggest U.S. banks, which received $160 billion of TARP funds, borrowed as much as $460 billion from the Fed, measured by peak daily debt calculated by Bloomberg using data obtained from the central bank. Paulson didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The six &#8212; JPMorgan, Bank of America, <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=C:US\">Citigroup Inc. (C)<\/a>, <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=WFC:US\">Wells Fargo &amp; Co. (WFC)<\/a>, <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=GS:US\">Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)<\/a>and Morgan Stanley &#8212; accounted for 63 percent of the average daily debt to the Fed by all publicly traded U.S. banks, money managers and investment- services firms, the data show. By comparison, they had about half of the industry\u2019s assets before the bailout, which lasted from August 2007 through April 2010. The daily debt figure excludes cash that banks passed along to money-market funds.<\/p>\n<h2>Bank Supervision<\/h2>\n<p>While the emergency response prevented financial collapse, the Fed shouldn\u2019t have allowed conditions to get to that point, says <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/joshua-rosner\/\">Joshua Rosner<\/a>, a banking analyst with Graham Fisher &amp; Co. in <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/new-york\/\">New York<\/a> who predicted problems from lax mortgage underwriting as far back as 2001. The Fed, the primary supervisor for large financial companies, should have been more vigilant as the <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=SPCS20:IND\">housing bubble<\/a> formed, and the scale of its lending shows the \u201csupervision of the banks prior to the crisis was far worse than we had imagined,\u201d Rosner says.<\/p>\n<p>Bernanke in an April 2009 <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/speech\/bernanke20090403a.htm\" rel=\"external\">speech<\/a> said that the Fed provided emergency loans only to \u201csound institutions,\u201d even though its internal assessments described at least one of the biggest borrowers, Citigroup, as \u201cmarginal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 14, 2009, six days before the company\u2019s central bank loans peaked, the New York Fed gave CEO Vikram Pandit a report declaring Citigroup\u2019s financial strength to be \u201csuperficial,\u201d bolstered largely by its $45 billion of Treasury funds. The document was released in early 2011 by the <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/fcic.law.stanford.edu\/\" rel=\"external\">Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission<\/a>, a panel empowered by Congress to probe the causes of the crisis.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Need Transparency\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Andrea Priest, a spokeswoman for the New York Fed, declined to comment, as did Jon Diat, a spokesman for Citigroup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that the Fed should have independence in conducting highly technical monetary policy, but when they are putting taxpayer resources at risk, we need transparency and accountability,\u201d says Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire senator who was a lead Republican negotiator on TARP, and Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chaired the House Financial Services Committee, both say they were kept in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t know the specifics,\u201d says Gregg, who\u2019s now an adviser to Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were aware emergency efforts were going on,\u201d Frank says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know the specifics.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Disclose Lending<\/h2>\n<p>Frank co-sponsored the <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/frwebgate.access.gpo.gov\/cgi-bin\/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&amp;docid=f:h4173enr.txt.pdf\" rel=\"external\">Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act<\/a>, billed as a fix for financial-industry excesses. Congress debated that legislation in 2010 without a full understanding of how deeply the banks had depended on the Fed for survival.<\/p>\n<p>It would have been \u201ctotally appropriate\u201d to disclose the lending data by mid-2009, says David Jones, a former economist at the <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorkfed.org\/index.html\" rel=\"external\">Federal Reserve Bank of New York<\/a> who has written four books about the central bank.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Fed is the second-most-important appointed body in the U.S., next to the Supreme Court, and we\u2019re dealing with a democracy,\u201d Jones says. \u201cOur representatives in Congress deserve to have this kind of information so they can oversee the Fed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to release details of some emergency-lending programs in December 2010. It also mandated disclosure of discount-window borrowers after a two- year lag.<\/p>\n<h2>Protecting TARP<\/h2>\n<p>TARP and the Fed lending programs went \u201chand in hand,\u201d says Sherrill Shaffer, a banking professor at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a former chief economist at the New York Fed. While the TARP money helped insulate the central bank from losses, the Fed\u2019s willingness to supply seemingly unlimited financing to the banks assured they wouldn\u2019t collapse, protecting the Treasury\u2019s TARP investments, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven though the Treasury was in the headlines, the Fed was really behind the scenes engineering it,\u201d Shaffer says.<\/p>\n<p>Congress, at the urging of Bernanke and Paulson, created TARP in October 2008 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. made it difficult for financial institutions to get loans. Bank of America and New York-based Citigroup each received $45 billion from TARP. At the time, both were tapping the Fed. Citigroup hit its peak borrowing of $99.5 billion in January 2009, while Bank of America topped out in February 2009 at $91.4 billion.<\/p>\n<h2>No Clue<\/h2>\n<p>Lawmakers knew none of this.<\/p>\n<p>They had no clue that one bank, New York-based <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=MS:US\">Morgan Stanley (MS)<\/a>, took $107 billion in Fed loans in September 2008, enough to pay off one-tenth of the country\u2019s delinquent mortgages. The firm\u2019s peak borrowing occurred the same day Congress rejected the proposed TARP bill, triggering the biggest point drop ever in the <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=INDU:IND\">Dow Jones Industrial Average. (INDU)<\/a> The bill later passed, and Morgan Stanley got $10 billion of TARP funds, though Paulson said only \u201chealthy institutions\u201d were eligible.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n<p>Had lawmakers known, it \u201ccould have changed the whole approach to reform legislation,\u201d says Ted Kaufman, a former Democratic Senator from Delaware who, with Brown, introduced the bill to limit bank size.<\/p>\n<h2>Moral Hazard<\/h2>\n<p>Kaufman says some banks are so big that their failure could trigger a chain reaction in the financial system. The cost of borrowing for so-called too-big-to-fail banks is lower than that of smaller firms because lenders believe the government won\u2019t let them go under. The perceived safety net creates what economists call moral hazard &#8212; the belief that bankers will take greater risks because they\u2019ll enjoy any profits while shifting losses to taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>If Congress had been aware of the extent of the Fed rescue, Kaufman says, he would have been able to line up more support for breaking up the biggest banks.<\/p>\n<p>Byron L. Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North Dakota, says the knowledge might have helped pass legislation to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which for most of the last century separated customer deposits from the riskier practices of investment banking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHad people known about the hundreds of billions in loans to the biggest financial institutions, they would have demanded Congress take much more courageous actions to stop the practices that caused this near financial collapse,\u201d says Dorgan, who retired in January.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting Bigger<\/h2>\n<p>Instead, the Fed and its secret financing helped America\u2019s biggest financial firms get bigger and go on to pay employees as much as they did at the height of the housing bubble.<\/p>\n<p>Total <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ffiec.gov\/nicpubweb\/nicweb\/top50form.aspx\" rel=\"external\">assets<\/a> held by the six biggest U.S. banks increased 39 percent to $9.5 trillion on Sept. 30, 2011, from $6.8 trillion on the same day in 2006, according to Fed data.<\/p>\n<p>For so few banks to hold so many assets is \u201cun-American,\u201d says Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. \u201cAll of these gargantuan institutions are too big to regulate. I\u2019m in favor of breaking them up and slimming them down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Employees at the six biggest banks made twice the average for all U.S. workers in 2010, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics hourly compensation cost data. The banks spent $146.3 billion on compensation in 2010, or an average of $126,342 per worker, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That\u2019s up almost 20 percent from five years earlier compared with less than 15 percent for the average worker. Average pay at the banks in 2010 was about the same as in 2007, before the bailouts.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Wanted to Pretend\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe pay levels came back so fast at some of these firms that it appeared they really wanted to pretend they hadn\u2019t been bailed out,\u201d says Anil Kashyap, a former Fed economist who\u2019s now a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be surprised that a lot of people find some of the stuff that happened totally outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch &amp; Co. at the urging of then-Treasury Secretary Paulson after buying the biggest U.S. home lender, Countrywide Financial Corp. When the Merrill Lynch purchase was announced on Sept. 15, 2008, Bank of America had $14.4 billion in emergency Fed loans and Merrill Lynch had $8.1 billion. By the end of the month, Bank of America\u2019s loans had reached $25 billion and Merrill Lynch\u2019s had exceeded $60 billion, helping both firms keep the deal on track.<\/p>\n<h2>Prevent Collapse<\/h2>\n<p>Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/u.s.-bank\/\">U.S. bank<\/a> by deposits before the 2008 acquisition. Because depositors were pulling their money from Wachovia, the Fed channeled $50 billion in secret loans to the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank through two emergency-financing programs to prevent collapse before Wells Fargo could complete the purchase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese programs proved to be very successful at providing financial markets the additional liquidity and confidence they needed at a time of unprecedented uncertainty,\u201d says Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for Wells Fargo.<\/p>\n<p>JPMorgan absorbed the country\u2019s largest savings and loan, Seattle-based <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/washington\/\">Washington<\/a> Mutual Inc., and investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. The New York Fed, then headed by Timothy F. Geithner, who\u2019s now Treasury secretary, helped JPMorgan complete the Bear Stearns deal by providing $29 billion of financing, which was disclosed at the time. The Fed also supplied Bear Stearns with $30 billion of secret loans to keep the company from failing before the acquisition closed, central bank data show. The loans were made through a program set up to provide emergency funding to brokerage firms.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Regulatory Discretion\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cSome might claim that the Fed was picking winners and losers, but what the Fed was doing was exercising its professional regulatory discretion,\u201d says John Dearie, a former speechwriter at the New York Fed who\u2019s now executive vice president for policy at the Financial Services Forum, a Washington-based group consisting of the CEOs of 20 of the world\u2019s biggest financial firms. \u201cThe Fed clearly felt it had what it needed within the requirements of the law to continue to lend to Bear and Wachovia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill introduced by Brown and Kaufman in April 2010 would have mandated shrinking the six largest firms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen a few banks have advantages, the little guys get squeezed,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThat, to me, is not what capitalism should be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kaufman says he\u2019s passionate about curbing too-big-to-fail banks because he fears another crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Can We Survive?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe amount of pain that people, through no fault of their own, had to endure &#8212; and the prospect of putting them through it again &#8212; is appalling,\u201d Kaufman says. \u201cThe public has no more appetite for bailouts. What would happen tomorrow if one of these big banks got in trouble? Can we survive that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lobbying expenditures by the six banks that would have been affected by the legislation rose to $29.4 million in 2010 compared with $22.1 million in 2006, the last full year before credit markets seized up &#8212; a gain of 33 percent, according to <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/\" rel=\"external\">OpenSecrets.org<\/a>, a research group that tracks money in U.S. politics. Lobbying by the American Bankers Association, a trade organization, increased at about the same rate, OpenSecrets.org reported.<\/p>\n<p>Lobbyists argued the virtues of bigger banks. They\u2019re more stable, better able to serve large companies and more competitive internationally, and breaking them up would cost jobs and cause \u201clong-term damage to the <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/u.s.-economy\/\">U.S. economy<\/a>,\u201d according to a Nov. 13, 2009, <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.financialservicesforum.org\/images\/stories\/docs\/20091103_moc_letter_large_firms.pdf\" rel=\"external\">letter<\/a> to members of Congress from the FSF.<\/p>\n<p>The group\u2019s <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.financialservicesforum.org\/images\/stories\/docs\/200912%20%2002_institutions_breakup_misguided.pdf\" rel=\"external\">website<\/a> cites Nobel Prize-winning economist Oliver E. Williamson, a professor emeritus at the University of <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/california\/\">California<\/a>, Berkeley, for demonstrating the greater efficiency of large companies.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Serious Burden\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In an interview, Williamson says that the organization took his research out of context and that efficiency is only one factor in deciding whether to preserve too-big-to-fail banks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe banks that were too big got even bigger, and the problems that we had to begin with are magnified in the process,\u201d <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/groups.haas.berkeley.edu\/bpp\/oew\/nobel.html\" rel=\"external\">Williamson<\/a> says. \u201cThe big banks have incentives to take risks they wouldn\u2019t take if they didn\u2019t have government support. It\u2019s a serious burden on the rest of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dearie says his group didn\u2019t mean to imply that Williamson endorsed big banks.<\/p>\n<p>Top officials in President Barack Obama\u2019s administration sided with the FSF in arguing against legislative curbs on the size of banks.<\/p>\n<h2>Geithner, Kaufman<\/h2>\n<p>On May 4, 2010, Geithner visited Kaufman in his Capitol Hill office. As president of the New York Fed in 2007 and 2008, Geithner helped design and run the central bank\u2019s lending programs. The New York Fed supervised four of the six biggest U.S. banks and, during the credit crunch, put together a daily confidential report on Wall Street\u2019s financial condition. Geithner was copied on these reports, based on a sampling of e- mails released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.<\/p>\n<p>At the meeting with Kaufman, Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says. According to Kaufman, Geithner said he preferred that bank supervisors from around the world, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve. Passing laws in the U.S. would undercut his efforts in Basel, Geithner said, according to Kaufman.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Geithner, declined to comment.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Punishing Success\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Lobbyists for the big banks made the winning case that forcing them to break up was \u201cpunishing success,\u201d Brown says. Now that they can see how much the banks were borrowing from the Fed, senators might think differently, he says.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed supported curbing too-big-to-fail banks, including giving regulators the power to close large financial firms and implementing tougher supervision for big banks, says Fed General Counsel Scott G. Alvarez. The Fed didn\u2019t take a position on whether large banks should be dismantled before they get into trouble.<\/p>\n<p>Dodd-Frank does provide a mechanism for regulators to break up the biggest banks. It established the Financial Stability Oversight Council that could order teetering banks to shut down in an orderly way. The council is headed by Geithner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDodd-Frank does not solve the problem of too big to fail,\u201d says Shelby, the Alabama Republican. \u201cMoral hazard and taxpayer exposure still very much exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Below Market<\/h2>\n<p>Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, says banks \u201cwere either in bad shape or taking advantage of the Fed giving them a good deal. The former contradicts their public statements. The latter &#8212; getting loans at below-market rates during a financial crisis &#8212; is quite a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Fed says it typically makes emergency loans more expensive than those available in the marketplace to discourage banks from abusing the privilege. During the crisis, Fed loans were among the cheapest around, with funding available for as low as 0.01 percent in December 2008, according to data from the central bank and money-market rates tracked by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed funds also benefited firms by allowing them to avoid selling assets to pay investors and depositors who pulled their money. So the assets stayed on the banks\u2019 books, earning interest.<\/p>\n<p>Banks report the difference between what they earn on loans and investments and their borrowing expenses. The figure, known as net interest margin, provides a clue to how much profit the firms turned on their Fed loans, the costs of which were included in those expenses. To calculate how much banks stood to make, Bloomberg multiplied their tax-adjusted net interest margins by their average Fed debt during reporting periods in which they took emergency loans.<\/p>\n<h2>Added Income<\/h2>\n<p>The 190 firms for which data were available would have produced income of $13 billion, assuming all of the bailout funds were invested at the margins reported, the data show.<\/p>\n<p>The six biggest U.S. banks\u2019 share of the estimated subsidy was $4.8 billion, or 23 percent of their combined net income during the time they were borrowing from the Fed. Citigroup would have taken in the most, with $1.8 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe net interest margin is an effective way of getting at the benefits that these large banks received from the Fed,\u201d says Gerald A. Hanweck, a former Fed economist who\u2019s now a finance professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>While the method isn\u2019t perfect, it\u2019s impossible to state the banks\u2019 exact profits or savings from their Fed loans because the numbers aren\u2019t disclosed and there isn\u2019t enough publicly available data to figure it out.<\/p>\n<p>Opinsky, the JPMorgan spokesman, says he doesn\u2019t think the calculation is fair because \u201cin all likelihood, such funds were likely invested in very short-term investments,\u201d which typically bring lower returns.<\/p>\n<h2>Standing Access<\/h2>\n<p>Even without tapping the Fed, the banks get a subsidy by having standing access to the central bank\u2019s money, says Viral Acharya, a New York University economics professor who has worked as an academic adviser to the New York Fed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBanks don\u2019t give lines of credit to corporations for free,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy should all these government guarantees and liquidity facilities be for free?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the September 2008 meeting at which Paulson and Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the need for TARP, Bernanke said that if nothing was done, \u201cunemployment would rise &#8212; to 8 or 9 percent from the prevailing 6.1 percent,\u201d Paulson wrote in \u201cOn the Brink\u201d (Business Plus, 2010).<\/p>\n<h2>Occupy Wall Street<\/h2>\n<p>The U.S. <a class=\"web_ticker\" title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=USURTOT:IND\">jobless rate<\/a> hasn\u2019t dipped below 8.8 percent since March 2009, 3.6 million homes have been foreclosed since August 2007, according to data provider RealtyTrac Inc., and police have clashed with Occupy Wall Street protesters, who say government policies favor the wealthiest citizens, in New York, Boston, Seattle and Oakland, California.<\/p>\n<p>The Tea Party, which supports a more limited role for government, has its roots in anger over the Wall Street bailouts, says Neil M. Barofsky, former TARP special inspector general and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lack of transparency is not just frustrating; it really blocked accountability,\u201d Barofsky says. \u201cWhen people don\u2019t know the details, they fill in the blanks. They believe in conspiracies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Geithner had his way. The <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/brown.senate.gov\/newsroom\/press_releases\/release\/?id=fb292bf6-2a89-49c8-bcaf-61245e984e87\" rel=\"external\">Brown-Kaufman proposal<\/a> to limit the size of banks was defeated, 60 to 31. Bank supervisors meeting in Switzerland did <a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bis.org\/bcbs\/basel3.htm\" rel=\"external\">mandate<\/a> minimum reserves that institutions will have to hold, with higher levels for the world\u2019s largest banks, including the six biggest in the U.S. Those rules can be changed by individual countries.<\/p>\n<p>They take full effect in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Kaufman says, \u201cwe\u2019re absolutely, totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at <a title=\"Send E-mail\" href=\"mailto:bivry@bloomberg.net\">bivry@bloomberg.net<\/a>; Bradley Keoun in New York at<a title=\"Send E-mail\" href=\"mailto:bkeoun@bloomberg.net\">bkeoun@bloomberg.net<\/a>; Phil Kuntz in New York at <a title=\"Send E-mail\" href=\"mailto:pkuntz1@bloomberg.net\">pkuntz1@bloomberg.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gary Putka at <a title=\"Send E-mail\" href=\"mailto:gputka@bloomberg.net\">gputka@bloomberg.net<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/david-scheer\/\">David Scheer<\/a> at<a title=\"Send E-mail\" href=\"mailto:dscheer@bloomberg.net\">dscheer@bloomberg.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>### Article above used with permission from the authors and as Fair Use; any further reprint, republishing, etc., MUST BE obtained by Bloomberg. ###<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A special thanks to Bloomberg.com for the release of this material, and sending the documents to The Black Vault for archiving Introduction Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion which was undisclosed to Congress.\u00a0 Bloomberg received these pages after filing a FOIA lawsuit, and won, which they then sifted through to create their massive report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[603,457,263,602],"class_list":{"0":"post-1218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-u-s-financial-information","8":"tag-bloomberg","9":"tag-financial","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-loans"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bigstock-Loan-word-on-electronic-calcul-27134789.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}