ARTICLE: Where the Fed’s Trillions Went

A provision in the financial reform law forced the Federal Reserve to disclose the details of the trillions it lent out at the height of the recent financial crisis.  You can see the data from some of the Fed’s emergency lending programs in our interactive [1]. In all, there were 11 programs—a mess of confusing acronyms like AMLF, TALF, PDCF, CPFF and so on [2]—but generally speaking, they were designed to stabilize the economy by enabling financial firms to keep many forms of lending going at a time when credit was hard to come by. Here’s a rundown of what’s come to light from this data so far.


Read more...