Image by Sean Davis via Flickr
with Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 13, 2022
Moderate Rebels on Jan 8, 2022
Economist Michael Hudson explains the inflation crisis and the Fed’s secretive $4.5 trillion bank bailout.
Image by Sean Davis via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, May 18, 2020
May 19, 2020
Insolvent Wall Street banks have been quietly bailed out again. Banks made risk-free by the government should be public utilities.
When the Dodd Frank Act was passed in 2010, President Obama triumphantly declared, “No more bailouts!” But what the Act actually said was that the next time the banks failed, they would be subject to “bail ins” – the funds of their creditors, including their large depositors, would be tapped to cover their bad loans.
Image by Steffi Reichert via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, May 2, 2020
May 3, 2020
Congress seems to be at war with the states. Only $150 billion of its nearly $3 trillion coronavirus relief package – a mere 5% – has been allocated to the 50 states; and they are not allowed to use it where they need it most, to plug the holes in their budgets caused by the mandatory shutdown. On April 22, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was opposed to additional federal aid to the states, and that his preference was to allow states to go bankrupt.
Image by Steffi Reichert via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, Apr. 3, 2020
April 4, 2020
Did Congress just nationalize the Fed? No. But the door to that result has been cracked open.
Image by Chase Elliott Clark via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, Mar. 21, 2020
March 22, 2020
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.
Image by zemistor via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, Mar. 11, 2020
March 13, 2020
When the World Health Organization announced on February 24th that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic, the stock market plummeted. Over the following week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 3,500 points or over 10%. In an attempt to contain the damage, on March 3rd the Federal Reserve slashed the fed funds rate from 1.5% to 1.0%, in their first emergency rate move and biggest one-time cut since the 2008 financial crisis. But rather than reassuring investors, the move fueled another panic sell-off.
Image by Sean Davis via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
January 12, 2020
Although the repo market is little known to most people, it is a $1-trillion-a-day credit machine, in which not just banks but hedge funds and other “shadow banks” borrow to finance their trades. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the central bank’s lending window is open only to licensed depository banks; but the Fed is now pouring billions of dollars into the repo (repurchase agreements) market, in effect making risk-free loans to speculators at less than 2%.
Image by Sean Davis via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
November 8, 2019
What’s going on in the repo market? Rates on repurchase agreements (“repo”) should be around 2%, in line with the fed funds rate. But they shot up to over 5% on September 16 and got as high as 10% on September 17. Yet banks were refusing to lend to each other, evidently passing up big profits to hold onto their cash – just as they did in the housing market crash and Great Recession of 2008-09.
Image by Sean Davis via Flickr
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
April 4, 2019
“If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank, safe and sound,
Soon that tuppence safely invested in the bank will compound,“And you’ll achieve that sense of conquest as your affluence expands
In the hands of the directors who invest as propriety demands.”— Mary Poppins, 1964
by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
August 26, 2013
Image by Mark Turnauckas via Flickr
Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy. How have they pulled this off, and where have they gotten the money?
Dandelion Salad 