Courtesy of Pam Martens
Trading Floor at the New York Fed (Obtained by Wall Street On Parade from a Fed Educational Video)
Most Americans are unaware of the existence of the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF). Together with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) it has morphed into the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s Plunge Protection Team.
The ESF was created in 1934 to provide support to the U.S. dollar during the Great Depression. As recently as March 31, 2007, the ESF was fairly modest in size, with assets of just $45.9 billion. Prior to Trump taking office, it had grown to $94.3 billion in assets. But thanks to a fancy maneuver by President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, the ESF skyrocketed to a staggering balance of $682 billion as of September 30, 2020.
Mnuchin was able to give himself this massive slush fund by helping to write the 2020 stimulus bill known as the CARES Act, which handed him $500 billion. The language in the bill said that Mnuchin was to provide $454 billion of the $500 billion to the Federal Reserve to create emergency lending facilities to support the economy during the pandemic. But all Mnuchin ever provided to the Fed was $114 billion. He kept the rest in the ESF. We know that because the Fed has confirmed to us that all it ever received was $114 billion and the Fed’s own financial statements also confirmed that. The official financial statements of the ESF confirmed that it received the full $500 billion from the CARES Act. In addition, this information was confirmed by the Congressional Research Service on December 17 of last year.
The Exchange Stabilization Fund is governed by Section 5302 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code. It provides the U.S. Treasury Secretary with the following authorities:
“Subject to approval by the President, the fund is under the exclusive control of the Secretary, and may not be used in a way that direct control and custody pass from the President and the Secretary. Decisions of the Secretary are final and may not be reviewed by another officer or employee of the Government.
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