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$340b of $454b Mnuchin was to turn over to the fed is unaccounted for (wallstreetonparade.com)
45 points by cinquemb on June 22, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments


The article links to this "FEDERAL RESERVE statistical release": https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/

I would expect investors and analysis firms pay attention to these reports. For civic-minded hackers, there may be an opportunity to contextualize these reports to a broader audience.

Some context about me: I used to work for the Sunlight Labs (part of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, DC) that advocated for financial transparency. At the time, Sunlight had considerable bipartisan support. To the extent I can, I would be happy to connect interested people to organizations that have interest in investigative journalism around such financial statements.


I have not seen this web site before. The about page says:

> Mission: Wall Street On Parade hopes to level the playing field between Wall Street and the 99 percent. Wall Street is a jungle of devices to effect an institutionalized wealth transfer system. The goal of this web site is to provide the jungle guide to the 99 percent in the hope of bringing about citizen-inspired change.

> Wall Street On Parade ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. WallStreetOnParade.com is a public interest web site operated by Russ and Pam Martens to help the investing public better understand systemic corruption on Wall Street. Ms. Martens is a former Wall Street veteran with a background in journalism. Mr. Martens' career spanned four decades in printing and publishing management.


For background, the National Law Review offers a legal summary of the 2020 CARES Act:

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/summary-cares-act

From what I can tell, it does a nice job of summarizing the different mechanisms of the act.


By unaccounted, they mean it hasn't been used.

Remember, these funds are only needed to the extent the Fed expects potential losses from loans. If they're making safe loans, it's not needed.


Would you please share some additional background and/or support for your comments?


https://www.wsj.com/articles/mnuchin-says-u-s-not-aiming-to-...

>Congress last month appropriated $454 billion to absorb possible losses on the Fed programs, which will provide trillions of dollars in loans to businesses and municipalities. The money from the Treasury serves as a buffer to protect the Fed against losses. Some of Fed’s investments may end up being profitable, while others will lose money, Mr. Mnuchin said on a conference call with reporters. All told, he said, the U.S. aims to at least come out even.

>The Treasury has pledged $185 billion so far from the funds Congress provided to support roughly $2.3 trillion in lending by the central bank, including loans for states and municipalities and midsize businesses. Mr. Mnuchin said he’s holding some money in reserve while he monitors the economy and the effectiveness of the programs.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11327

>Although there were no losses from these facilities after the 2008 financial crisis, some of the 2020 facilities pose greater risk, and assets from Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) have been pledged to backstop losses on several of the facilities today. To date, $215 billion has been pledged to these programs (see Table 1)

OP isn't even accurate on its own terms. $215 billion has been pledged, not the $114 billion OP claims.


It says right in this article that of the money allocated, the Fed has not met it's commitment to disclose the lender, sum, and interest rate of about 3/4 of the loans they have given. It is a fair assumption by the author that we cannot have any expectation that the rest of the disbursements will be reported appropriately.


Note that the three facilities that have disbursed funds but are not releasing transaction level data were all established before the CARES act was enacted and have nothing to do with the $454 billion in funding there. Those are safe facilities lending to banks or other bank-like companies and didn't require any support from Congress. There was never any commitment to disclose transaction data there. OP is just misleading.


Which commitment and what evidence is offered for that allegation?

The headline number from OP is off by a factor of two. Forgive me if I don't trust anything else from that source without external corroboration.

I looked at their sources. Turns out, several of the programs they want more transparency on haven't yet started:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/pmccf-smcc...

>Update. As of May 19, 2020, the PMCCF was not yet operational. Accordingly, there are no transaction data to report

>Update. As of May 19, 2020, the TALF was not yet operational. Accordingly, there are no transaction data to report.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/msnlf-msel...

>Update. As of May 28, 2020, the MSNLF was not yet operational. Accordingly, there are no transaction data to report.

>Update. As of May 28, 2020, the MSELF was not yet operational. Accordingly, there are no transaction data to report.

>Update. As of May 28, 2020, the MSPLF was not yet operational. Accordingly, there are no transaction data to report.

Looking up the Powell speech where these commitments" were made, this is the paragraph right before the quote in OP:

>To more directly support the flow of credit to households, businesses, and state and local governments, the Federal Reserve established a number of facilities. To support the small business sector, we established the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility to bolster the effectiveness of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act's (CARES Act) Paycheck Protection Program. Our Main Street Lending Program, which we are in the process of launching, supports lending to both small and midsized businesses. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility supports lending to both businesses and consumers. To support the employment and spending of investment-grade businesses, we established two corporate credit facilities. And to help U.S. state and local governments manage cash flow pressures and serve their communities, we set up the Municipal Liquidity Facility.

Every single facility mentioned either has not yet given out money or transaction data has already been released.

There is no broken commitment here, full stop.


See also this article from June 18, 2020:

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/06/administration-continu...

> It’s been almost three months since President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law. While the executive branch has already spent much of the emergency aid appropriated by the bill, it has not approached the bill’s oversight and transparency provisions with the same fervor. Without transparency and oversight of the spending, American taxpayers cannot have full confidence that the government is acting in their best interests, or that those who most need the economic assistance are the ones who got it.




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