Foreign banks are profiting from no risk ‘spread-pocketing’ via Fed interest rate policies… and U.S. taxpayers are ‘footing the bill.’

ZeroHedge 9-30-14 excerpts:

“Foreign Banks ‘pocket a spread’ by borrowing cheaply and parking funds at the Federal Reserve…. according to the Wall Street Journal:  “Fed Rate Policies Aid Foreign Banks: Lenders Pocket a Spread by Borrowing Cheaply, Parking Funds at Central Bank”

Though small in relation to their overall revenues, interest payments from the Fed have been a source of virtually risk-free returns for foreign banks. Large holders of Fed reserves include Deutsche Bank, UBS AG, Bank of China and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, according to bank regulatory filings. U.S. banks including J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America Corp. are also big recipients of Fed interest payments, according to the filings.

“It is a small transfer from U.S. taxpayers to foreign taxpayers,” said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The transfer, he added, was a side effect of Fed policy, not a goal.

Behind the payments is a complex interplay between new government regulatory policies and new methods the Fed has developed to control short-term interest rates.
The Fed has pumped nearly $3 trillion into the banking system since the 2008 financial crisis, increasing banks’ reserves, in efforts to stabilize markets and boost economic growth.

Since 2008, it has paid banks interest of 0.25% on those reserves. The Fed affirmed this month that the rate it pays on reserves will be the primary tool it uses to raise short-term borrowing costs from near zero when the time comes, likely next year.
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“The fact is that the Fed is going to be paying very large amounts of interest to banks,” said William Poole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “It’s highly likely that some politicians will notice that and given the proclivity of some politicians anyway to demagogue issues, the Fed is going to have some political explaining to do.”

Since 2009, foreign banks have earned roughly $5 billion by borrowing dollars cheaply, often at less than 0.10%, in short-term funding markets and depositing those funds at the Fed for 0.25%, according to the Journal analysis. That estimate doesn’t take into account the costs of raising money through other means, overhead and taxes, which affect net income.

But don’t blame the banks – they are merely doing what the Fed is encouraging them to do. And after all who wouldn’t collect billions in risk free cash?”
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So here we have the U.S. Federal Reserve providing risk free carry trades to foreign banks, along with major U.S. commercial banks – printing up ‘free money’ currency to hand as a free gift to these global commercial banks… and U.S. taxpayers ‘pick up the tab’ in the form of a drain on future purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar.

Again, “since 2009, foreign banks have earned roughly $5 billion by borrowing dollars cheaply, often at less than 0.10%, in short-term funding markets and depositing those funds at the Fed for 0.25%…”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME….?
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It is time for U.S. citizens to get equal treatment from the Federal Reserve – the same access to liquidity that has been given to “Deutsche Bank, UBS AG, Bank of China and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, according to bank regulatory filings. U.S. banks including J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America Corp.”

The Leviticus 25 Plan provides the mechanism for this equal access to liquidity for U.S. citizens.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 – The $70,000 Solution                                                   September 2014 – Updated version:  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 (560)

A recent government report verified that for the 35th consecutive month in a row, over 46 million are receiving food stamps.  A recent GAO report also revealed that food stamp fraud is “rampant” (FoxNews.com August 22, 2014):

“Americans receiving food stamps were caught selling and bartering their benefits online for art, housing and cash, according to a new federal report that investigates fraud in the nation’s largest nutrition support program.

Complicating the situation is the fact states around the country are having trouble tracking and prosecuting the crimes because their enforcement budgets have been slashed despite the rapidly-rising number of food stamp recipients, according to the Government Accountability Office report.

Under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, 47 million people have been awarded $76 billion in benefits. State agencies are responsible for addressing SNAP recipient fraud under the guidance and monitoring of the Food and Nutrition Service.

“Such rapid program growth can increase the potential for fraud unless appropriate agency controls are in place to help minimize these risks,” the investigators said in their report.

The GAO report resulted from a review of 11 state and federal efforts to fight food stamp fraud, effectiveness of certain fraud detection tools and how FNS oversees state anti-fraud efforts.

The report found that “most of the selected states reported difficulties in conducting fraud investigations due to either reduced or maintained staff levels while SNAP recipient numbers greatly increased from fiscal year 2009 through 2013.

[snip]

Allegations of fraud and abuse have long-plagued SNAP and have been used by lawmakers in Washington to argue that the program has spiraled out of control.”
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Government-created social welfare programs promote negative incentives for self-reliance, and are next-to-impossible to efficiently monitor.

Congress has no plan for any type of transition to a better outcome for America’s financially distressed citizens.

America needs a better solution – one that helps lift Americans up out of poverty, instead of one that simply keeps them in a state of on-going dependence on government.

The Leviticus 25 Plan offers the fresh start. It is time for change.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 – The $70,000 Solution                                                   September 2014 – Updated version:  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2015 (560)

The Council on Foreigh Relations, founded in 1921, is a non-profit American organization, populated with senior government figures and politicians, bankers, lawyers, intelligence officers, and other from the elite class.  With offices in New York and Washington, D.C., it is viewed as the nation’s “most influential foreign-policy think tank.”

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Seeking Alpha / Sep 2, 2014  5:55 AM ET – Excerpts

When an article appears in Foreign Affairs, the mouthpiece of the policy-setting Council on Foreign Relations, recommending that the Federal Reserve do a money drop directly on the 99%, you know the central bank must be down to its last bullet.

The September/October issue of Foreign Affairs features an article by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan titled “Print Less But Transfer More: Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly To The People.” It’s the sort of thing normally heard only from money reformers and Social Credit enthusiasts far from the mainstream. What’s going on?

The Fed, it seems, has finally run out of other ammo. It has to taper its quantitative easing program, which is eating up the Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities needed as collateral for the repo market that is the engine of the bankers’ shell game. The Fed’s Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) has also done serious collateral damage. The banks that get the money just put it in interest-bearing Federal Reserve accounts or buy foreign debt or speculate with it; and the profits go back to the 1%, who park it offshore to avoid taxes. Worse, any increase in the money supply from increased borrowing increases the overall debt burden and compounding finance costs, which are already a major constraint on economic growth.

Meanwhile, the economy continues to teeter on the edge of deflation….

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The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is marginally on the right track.  But their proposal does nothing to restore economic liberty in America, and it does nothing to free people from the heavy hand of government in controlling and restricting them in managing their daily affairs.

The Leviticus 25 Plan does restore economic liberty in America, and it frees people from oppressive government programs that actually keep them in poverty and servitude.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would effect wide-scale debt elimination at the family level, thereby helping to insulate millions of Americans from potentially devastating effects of another severe economic contraction.

The Plan would eliminate massive government restrictions and control over healthcare, and replace it with individual control  and consumer choice in healthcare access.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would balance the federal budget – immediately in Year One.

With millions of American families financially distressed and living paycheck-to-paycheck, the Federal Reserve is handing out ‘free money’ to foreign banks through an Interest On Excess Reserves (IOER) arbitrage play.

David Stockman explains the process:
In recent years foreign banks have been tapping U.S. money market funds for very cheap short-term loans. Unlike domestic banks, foreign banks don’t have domestic depositors to tap for funds, so they turn elsewhere for dollars. Money market funds make the funds available for a few hundredths of a percentage point. The foreign banks in turn park those loans at the Fed for 0.25% interest. They earn profits on the spread between the cheap cost of funds available from money market funds and the higher rate they get at the Fed.
It’s a trade that domestic U.S. banks have been unwilling to make because they have to pay additional fees to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on their borrowings, fees the foreign banks don’t have to pay.

Source:  “Why The Fed’s Outrageous Gift To Foreign Banks— Risk Free Aribitrage On IOER–Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg”  –  by David Stockman

This is a risk-free arbitrage play, with the Fed forking over millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funds to ……. foreign banks.
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Meanwhile, in America today there are 47 million Americans on food stamps – and on top of that, millions of Americans are lining up at food pantries and ‘soup lines’ each week.

According to RealtyTrac (August 2014), “There are currently 1,089,253 properties in U.S. that are in some stage of foreclosure (default, auction or bank owned)…”

Real Median Household Income has been in a steady downtrend for a decade.

Big government social welfare programs dribble out benefits each week and disincentivize work in a way that perpetuates the underclass.

Central-planning and ‘government allocation of resources” dispense political favors and generate gross price distortions.

And our U.S. Federal Reserve is subsidizing foreign banks…

It is time for American families to be granted the same access to their own money that that foreign banks are have access to through the Fed’s IOER scheme.

It is time to get America moving again with a plan that restores economic freedom, reduces the scope and control of big government over citizens, and restores economic health in America – and pays for itself over a 10-15 year period.

The Leviticus 25 Plan.

LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate, is the average interest rate (estimate) that leading London banks would pay, at a given point in time, if they were to borrow money from other banks.

Some 16 major global banking operations are believed to have been involved in ‘rate-manipulation’ schemes burned U.S. homeowners out of “billions of dollars” by consistently, artificially popping the LIBOR rate up on the first day of the month – the day when interest rates were reset for ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages).

Affected U.S. mortgage-holders were defrauded in the schemes.

LIBOR rate-rigging also cost municipalities across the U.S. billions of dollars in municipal bond costs by artificially ‘tilting’ rates against the interest rate swaps that had been purchased by municipalities, such as Baltimore, to hedge the bonds.
And these schemes affected the value of ‘swap lines’ that were held by several dozen U.S. banks, that were tied to LIBOR rates.

Reuters reported on March 14, 2014 that the FDIC was suing 16 banks that it believed were involved in LIBOR rate-rigging: “The banks named as defendants include Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.”
“Other defendants in the lawsuit are Rabobank, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Societe Generale, Norinchukin Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and WestLB AG.”  Barclays and UBS had already settled.
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Note: all of the named banks had received billions of dollars, during the height of the financial crisis, from the Fed’s “secret liquidity lifelines.”
Citigroup, peak amount received from Fed: $99.5B
Bank of America: $91.4B
RBS:   $84.5B
Barclays  $64.9B

The most recent bank to be implicated, and fined: Lloyd’s Banking Group, Plc, peak amount received from Fed during the financial crisis: $505M
___________________________________

The very banks that received billions of dollars in bailout funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve were defrauding American families, state municipalities, and other U.S. financial institutions.

American families deserve nothing less than the same access to liquidity that these banks received, from U.S. taxpayers, during the financial crisis.

The Leviticus 25 Plan

The U.S. supports the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the tune of 17.1% of its funding. That is the U.S. “quota” percentage. But the true amount may actually be slightly more than that, due to something called “usable resources” (Zimbabwean dollars and Venezuelan pesos are not “usable” in terms of IMF lending)

Greece
When the IMF bailed out Greece with a $39 billion package in 2010, the U.S. portion of that bailout amounted to $6.669 billion. Thank you, American taxpayers.

Ukraine
The IMF just announced a $17.1 billion bailout package ($3.2 billion to be extended immediately to forestall defaults). The U.S. taxpayers ‘kick-in” amounted to $2.924 billion.

A significant amount of the IMF bailouts will be used to pay off gas debts owed to Russia.
But first… (again, thank you, American taxpayers)…:

ZeroHedge 5-6-14:  “Kiev will use the first portion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan for augmenting its gold and currency reserves in order to stabilize the financial situation in the country, National Bank Chairman Stepan Kubiv said on Monday, May 5.

“Over $1 billion from the first portion of the loan will go into the gold and currency reserves of Ukraine, which will strengthen the financial system of the country. The remainder will go to the budget to stabilize the macroeconomic and financial situation in Ukraine,” he said.
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To recap – The U.S. government funds 17% of the IMF budget, of which billions have flowed to, through the IMF, to Greece and Ukraine to help them pay off debts to the likes of hedge funds and Russia’s Putin.
And to provide funding to Ukraine to purchase gold and currency reserves “in order to stabilize the financial situation there.”

Novel idea:  What if U.S. citizens were also provided with the same access to their own money that the citizens of Greece and Ukraine have received, courtesy of our own U.S. government and the IMF…?

Greece and Ukraine have used U.S. funds to pay down debts and purchase gold.
Allow U.S. citizens to access credit, through a Citizens Credit Facility, to pay down our own debts and stabilize family finances.  And to purchase gold, as a hedge against a U.S. Dollar that has been losing purchasing power at a steady rate since the opening round of QE in March 2009.

It is time to level the playing field for U.S. citizens first – and time to restore economic liberty in America.

It is time now for The Leviticus 25 Plan.

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The U.S. healthcare system needs one simple fix – a citizen-based allocation of resources, rather than big-government central planning.

Our politicians have created a lumbering, red-tape laden healthcare monstrosity with bureaucrats, analysts, programmers, regulators, monitors, enforcers, healthcare coaches, and NFL advertisers all involved in the chain of players.

Website work alone reached an eye-popping $4 billion. It was recently announced that the government has spent $4.4 billion on ramping up state healthcare websites in “several waves of grants.”  In addition, last month Kathleen Sebelius testified on Capitol Hill that “the federal website has so far cost $174 million, including $56 million in technological support with more still owed to contractors.”

We need to refocus on the patient and the providers.  We need to decentralize.    We need to return to a cash basis.

Direct the Federal Reserve to electronically deposit $16,000 in to the Medical Savings Account (MSA) of every participating U.S. citizen.  Reverse the individual mandate to bring the private insurers back onto the playing field, and let families purchase high-deductible major medical policies with precisely the types of coverage they desire.

This would allow Americans to keep their major medical plans, keep their doctors and keep their pharmacists.

For a period of 5 years. participating U.S. citizens concurrently enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TriCare, and FEHB (approximately 121 million people) would not lose coverage in these programs, but would be responsible for covering a $3,000 annual deductible (all covered by the newly-available MSA funds).

This would allow for American families themselves to allocate $363 billion of their healthcare expenditures each year during the 5 year period – instead of running it through big government programs.

This “Citizens Plan” would have a wonderful, cleansing effect.  It would cut out the dead wood (millions of middlemen) and restore individual freedom of choice for choosing one’s own providers and services.  And all citizens would have resources for their basic day-to-day healthcare needs.

Doors are closing fast in the healthcare field.  We need a rescue plan. Cash paying customers would reopen a lot of doors.  America needs that.

America needs The Leviticus 25 Plan.

As the banking crisis intensified in the Fall of 2008, with major banking institutions assuming (or on the verge of assuming) ‘underwater’ status, the Federal Reserve ran quickly to the rescue with secret liquidity lifelines” (Bloomberg 8-22-11).

The Fed substantially eased some important collateral rules for banks, “meaning that banks that could once borrow only against sound collateral, like Treasury bills or AAA-rated corporate bonds, could now borrow against pretty much anything – including some of the mortgage-backed sewage that got us into this mess in the first place….  ‘All of a sudden, banks were allowed to post absolute [expletive deleted] to the Fed’s balance sheet,’ [according to] the manager of the prominent hedge fund.” (Source: Bailout Hustle, Matt Taibbi).

The Federal Reserve invented various “facilities” to fire-hose liquidity out to the big banks and big brokerage firms, including these:

Primary Dealers’ Credit Facility                                            

Term Securities Lending Facility                                                          

Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program                                      

Commercial Paper Funding Facility                                               

Term Auction Facility                                                              

Public Private Investment Program

And, here we go – from the top:

Top recipient – Morgan Stanley                                                 

“Morgan Stanley, facing a crisis of confidence after the fall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., got a $9 billion injection from Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and agreed to take a $10 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury to shore up capital. As hedge-fund customers pulled funds out of the New York-based firm, it plugged the hole with $107.3 billion of secret loans from the Federal Reserve’s Primary Dealer Credit Facility and Term Securities Lending Facility, set up earlier in the year to supply brokerage firms with emergency financing.”

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The Leviticus 25 Plan does not seek to ‘interrupt’ or reverse any of the special relationships that have developed in the Fed’s financial sphere.  It only seeks to level the playing field – by providing U.S. citizens the same access to direct liquidity flows that  the big banks enjoyed ‘in their time of need.’

The Leviticus 25 Plan proposes one additional upgrade to the Fed’s liquidity lines:   U.S. Citizens Credit Facility.

U.S. citizens should demand nothing less. We need it now.

Millions of home loans have fallen into “distressed status” over the past 5 years, as the economy began shriveling up and American families began losing income and falling behind on their mortgage payments.

At a certain point in time lenders (banks, government agencies / loan insurers) file  foreclosure notices on these distressed properties.  A significant number of days may then pass before the process moves on to the next step. The delinquent homeowner may request a short-sale – which the lender may or may not allow.  Or the lender may proceed on to a foreclosure auction.

The “foreclosing beneficiary” (the ‘lender) will set the opening bid for the amount owed on the loan (or the ‘outstanding loan amount’).  And if there are no interested parties willing to bid at that ‘set’ price, then the foreclosing beneficiary comes to legally repossess the property.

These lender-owned properties are known as Real Estate Owned (REO) properties, and are listed on their books as non-performing assets.

RealtyTrac forecasts 500,000 REOs for 2013.  That’s an average of over 1360 “lender repossessions” per day, for each and every day of the year.  That’s over 1360 families daily – losing their homes to banks and government agencies.

And now some big firms like the hedgefund, Blackstone, have been stepping in to buy up these ‘lender-owned’ properties, in mass, in certain markets like Phoenix and Tampa, with support from an “ongoing government-subsidized, GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-to-Rent initiative.”  (ZeroHedge 3-14-13)

Blackstone’s plan is to get the properties fixed up and rented out — with rent-paying tenants in place.

And then they plan to securitize these tranches – similar to the good old mortgage securitizations (MBSs) that were so popular during the housing bubble (the one that ‘popped’ in the Fall of 2008 and pushed the banks underwater and sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin).

So… here is a quick summary.  Homeowners in America (500,000 this year alone) will ‘exit’ their homes as those homes are legally repossessed by lenders (the ‘foreclosing beneficiary’) – banks and government agencies.  The U.S. government then enters the scene to subsidize (yes, SUBSIDIZE) the sale of these homes from the repossessing lender to a hedgefund to turn into rentals for eventual securitization and sale as an  income-producing investment vehicle.

This scheme is a “government-subsidized, GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-to-Rent initiative, through which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties. The REO-To-Rent has traditionally been open to the biggest of financial companies, or at least those who don’t have the stigma of legacy mortgage origination resulting in billions in litigation reserves, which means mostly hedge funds and PE firms.” (ZeroHedge 3-14-13)

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The Leviticus 25 Plan offers a preferred alternative.

Instead of the U.S. government again bailing out the banks by subsidizing the sale of these non-performing assets to investment companies, The Leviticus 25 Plan keeps American families in their homes, so the problem doesn’t develop in the first place.

It is unconscionable that the U.S. government offers no mechanism to provide liquidity to financially distressed American families, but it will provide liquidity to distressed banks to move distressed properties off their books – and into the hands of hedgefunds for ‘grooming’ as securitized investments.

There is only one plan in America that will re-ignite real economic growth, pay for itself over a 10-15 year period, and deliver substantial ‘ground-level’ benefits to Americans.

The Leviticus 25 Plan.

When the Fed auctions off various financial securities each month (to raise funds to cover monthly deficits), each of those securities is identified by a specific Identification number.  This unique number is called a “CUSIP.” This acronym stands for the “Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures.”

Note this more complete definition:  Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures  –  A board that assigns a nine-digit number to every stock and registered bond that trades in the United States. CUSIP is owned by the American Bankers Association and is operated by S&P. A CUSIP number facilitates trade and settlement by making each security unique from every other of the same class. CUSIP numbers are recorded in each trade. 

Well… on February 14, 2013, the Fed auctioned off some 30-year Bonds (note the CUSIP – “912810QZ4”):

TREASURY AUCTION RESULTS                                                                              

Term and Type of Security 30-Year Bond                                                            

CUSIP Number 912810QZ4                                                                                      

Series Bonds of February 2043

The auction bidders typically include the Primary Dealers, the direct (non-Primary Dealer) bidders and the Indirect Bidders (Central Banks).

The Primary Dealers enjoy a practically conjugal relationship with the Fed, and they are obligated, in accordance with that special to ‘take’ or ‘buy’ whatever portion of the debt auction not bid/purchased by the other bidders.  And that is generally substantial.  According the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the “primary dealers alone account for 70.9 percent of Treasu8ry securities sold to the public, on average. “

Immediately following the Valentine’s Day auction this year (5 days later, on February 19, 2013), the Fed ‘bought back’ the majority of that very same 2-14-13 CUSIP ($39 billion worth – see below) from the Primary Dealers (who were unable to ‘move’ that paper to their clients and did not wish, themselves, to ‘sit on it’).

The Fed repurchases this ‘paper’ in Permanent Open Market Operations (POMOs) and the paper then ‘sits’ in the Fed’s System Open Market Account (SOMA).   The Government then ‘pays interest to itself on money that it borrowed from itself.”

And, guess who gets paid a healthy commission to ‘take’ the paper, and then shuffle it back to the Fed…?

That’s right —  the Primary Dealers (see who they are here).

This would be the equivalent of making a purchase at a Wal-mart, then then returning the product, and being paid a commission to boot.  Here is the 2-19-13 POMO summary (note the same CUSIP “912810QZ4” for $39 billion):

And… the Fed ‘funnels’ a lot of money through the Primary Dealers. Note the blue line (2009-2013) on this chart – courtesy of The Wall Street Examiner:

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The Fed’s ‘liquidity funneling’ maneuvers have been weakening the Dollar (vs hard assets) over the past 4 years (inflation).  And very little of the ‘liquidity’ benefits are reaching American families.

It is time for a change.

 The Leviticus 25 Plan.