The Fed’s under-the-radar bailout

That $700 billion from the Treasury? Chump change in the light of more than $7 billion in potential Federal Reserve bailout money.

Problems? Yes, beyond the size of that. The Fed is stonewalling on saying who is getting how much money from it.

“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”

A President Obama who was really about change would have the name of a new Fed head ready to go, and would publicly say so right now. A Congress that was really angry would tighten up the terms on TARP as part of any new bailout.

Will Congress push harder than it has so far for disclosure? It needs to:

“It’s unprecedented,” said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.”

But, these are the same folks who passed the Patriot Act sight unseen seven years ago. What the hell do or did you expect?