Last, I watched the Frontline Program, The Power of the Fed, When COVID-19 struck, the Federal Reserve stepped in to try to avert economic crisis. As the country’s central bank continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily, who is benefiting and at what cost.
The show centered on the Federal Banks’ Quantitative Easing program of low interest, almost not interests, rate loans. loans to the banks and wall street. Hower the program initially also bailout Mainstreet. FRED Effective Federal Funds Rate (FRED Graphs Can Be found on the Staint Louis Federal Reserve website.
Part 1 The Working Class, Mainstreet, the 99% is not Recovering, Have Not Been Bailedout!
The show states that Mainstreet was initially benefitted from the program, that is wrong! This was clearly explained by Paul Craig Roberts, Who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Ronald Reagan. He wrote:
The quantitative Easing program was designed to bailout the economy after the economic bubble burst 1n 2008. Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through June 2021, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 61.6percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
Employment has not improved, There has depression levels rates of overz20% employment since 2008!
Shadow Government Alternate Unemployment Charts. The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.June 2021 Shadow Government Statsyics Alternate Unemployment is 25.8%
The bailout did nothing to improve the real weekly working earnings of the working class, that have been declining since the 70s!
Part II Wall Street and the Banks Have Gotten Richer as the Fed Gave Basically $Trillions to the Wall Street Banks etc..
Frontline does a good presentation on this point — Banks, ‘Shadow Banks’, and Wall Street are booming!
Companies and stockbrokers have been buying back their own stocks using these $Trilluon loans to buy back their own stock to inflate the value their own stock, even though there has not been any real valve produced by economic means!
The result has been a greater separation of wealth! A lot of the billionaires have become trillionaires! The Fed Has now given over $10 tillion to Wall Street!
Giving an illusion that the economy is boom!
The Theory was that the ‘Bailout Loans’ would trickle down to the 99%, but, in realtiy if has the greates trickle up the 1% in the history of the world!
FRED Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average