patrick.net

Wall Street also got into the act:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/index.htm?hpt=patrick.net#storyBrandingBanner

Well it's nice to know that China isn't holding the note on ALL of the World.

Blah blah systemic risk blah blah globalization blah blah.

When Ross Perot or Sir James Goldsmith said DANGER everyone laughed.

You reap what you sow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI

Wasn't it Ross Perot that said there is a "giant sucking sound" of our jobs going to Mexico, etc.? They laughed at that one too.

"Federal Reserve Withholds Collateral Data, Denying Taxpayers Gauge of Risk"
Bloomberg

"The Federal Reserve withheld details on individual securities pledged as collateral by recipients of $885 billion in central bank loans, denying taxpayers a measure of the risks they faced from its emergency aid ..."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/taxpayer-risk-impossible-to-know-for-some-fed-financial-crisis-programs.html

Nothing like transparency.

RayAmerica says

“Federal Reserve Withholds Collateral Data, Denying Taxpayers Gauge of Risk”

True, but on Karl Denninger's blog you can see that some of the collateral was accepted at only 10% of face value. That tells us something right there.

thunder ... Perot was light years ahead of his time. He warned us about the very things that are taking this country down. The fact that he was out of the mainstream and not a member of the One party system that goes by two different names enabled him to tell it like it is.

List of the 35 foreign banks that took "loans" from the Fed:

UBS
Dexia SA
BNP Paribas
Barclays PLC
Royal Bank of Scotland Group
Commerzbank AG
Danske Bank A/S
ING Groep NV
WestLB
Handelsbanken
Deutsche Post AG
Erste Group Bank AG
NordLB
Free State of Bavaria
KBC
HSH Nordbank AG
Unicredit
HSBC Holdings PLC
DZ Bank AG
Republic of Korea
Rabobank
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
Banco Espirito Santo SA
Bank of Nova Scotia
Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd.
Syngenta AG
Mitsui & Co Ltd
Bank of Montreal
Caixa Geral de Dep?sitos
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
Shinhan Financial Group Co Ltd
Mitsubishi Corp
Aegon NV
Royal Bank of Canada
Sumitomo Corp

Let's say you have a bank, let's call it Dewey Cheatham & Howe Bank.

This bank is headquartered in the US but has global operations and linkages of course.

Money is fungible. Any money you bail out the US headquarters on, is also assisting foreign operations.

TPTB see it this way:

Let's say DC&H folds and takes down mortgages and stock markets and it's counterparties, that's going to cause quite a turmoil for all customers.

Same thing applies to UBS. If UBS America is hurting and starts needing cash, it could take down US-headquartered banks with it.

For the people who believe in TBTF, everything is connected and letting any domino wobble could crash everything. That was the primary criticism of Lehman & Bear Stearns, for those people making that decision it was not about one company it was the effects on all the counterparties if they started calling in all their markers to pay their debts. So for Bernanke etc. I'm quite certain they see no problem with what they did.

I'm opposed to all this Too Big To Fail business and think we should be winding it down.

JP Morgan is the leading problem IMO. It is already too big and wants to get bigger. It is 30% offshore now. What happens when it's 60% offshore and has it's tendrils all over? It will be the ultimate TBTF because no country in which it operates will have leeway to allow it to fail.

European banks were given bailouts because our Fed was frightened by the idea of foreign banks dumping the "toxic assets" which they would have to in order to stay afloat. Such action would further devalua and crush this recent fake bubble of prosperity making these same fictitious "toxic assets" held by our banks even more worthless.

It was more in line of bailing out existing US banks by keeping their assets priced higher. This is why they do housing tax credits, as long as prices can be artificially inflated... bank assets will stay positive. Which is probably a good reason for many folks to stay out of the housing market for next few years, until the Fed stops artificial and unsustainable subsidies. Eventually government will pull the support plug when it will no longer be necessary.