How The F*** is it that Martha Stewart Went to Jail

I remain convinced that average citizens on both sides of the political equation have much more in common than the rich and powerful would ever like to see articulated. I saw Jon Stewart talking about this last night and dug up the article, dated, Nov-27, this morning. CNN reported the story a couple days later, but the lame stream media has not picked this up. Several commentators on fair and balanced have addressed it, but by and large the scope of the transfer of wealth to the criminals who precipitated the financial crisis has gone unnoticed. $7.7 trillion dollars, 11 times TARP money, was loaned by the Fed at 0.01% interest. The banks and Fed hoped to keep this secret and notified neither the Executive (Treasury Department) nor Legislative (Congress) arms of government.
Here’s a portion of the Bloomberg Article.
“The Federal Reserve 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.
The Fed didn’t 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’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans 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’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.“
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
Here’s Stewart’s Take: “Bloomberg report reveals that the U.S. government loaned banks $7.7 trillion in secret bailout funds at no interest and then borrowed the money back at interest.”
The banks took the money, tried to keep it secret, and then reinvested it reaping a $13 billion profit. http://www.thedailyshow.com/
The first two segments of the Daily Show have beome the most important (and entertaining) much watch news segnments in the media.