Courtesy of Pam Martens
After watching the video below, if you have further doubts, consider this: On August 7 of last year, Wall Street On Parade reported that Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, was having private phone calls with BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, while BlackRock managed upwards of $25 million of Powell’s personal money and the Fed awarded three no-bid contracts to BlackRock for emergency lending facilities.
One of those no-bid contracts allowed BlackRock to use Fed money to buy up corporate bonds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in the secondary market, including BlackRock’s own ETFs. American taxpayers’ money was used to backstop losses in these bailout facilities.
And while the individual stock-trading of Kaplan and Rosengren is indeed an outrage, it pales in comparison to what the New York Fed has been doing for decades.
On October 30 of last year, Wall Street On Parade reported that the New York Fed signed a contract with JPMorgan Chase on December 31, 2008 to serve as the sole custodian of the Fed’s holdings of agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). The contract was updated on January 30, 2017 and continues to this day. As of last month, JPMorgan Chase was holding $2.4 trillion (principal amount) in MBS backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae that belongs to the Fed.
During the term of that Fed contract, JPMorgan Chase has admitted to five felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. But, apparently, in the Fed’s view, serial criminal activity is not a reason to shop for a new custodian for $2.4 trillion in Fed assets.
