COMMENT: Marty; the Fed quietly published the banks it was funding in the Repo Crisis. I just wanted to say, you are always right. The press claimed it was tax time, but you said it was the crisis in European banks. Your sources are always spot on. Thanks for the light of truth.
PG
REPLY: Yes, that story that the liquidity crisis occurred because US corporations withdrew large amounts from the banks in order to make quarterly tax payments was the most absurd propaganda I ever heard. Why then do we not see the same liquidity crisis event during tax season?
The bulk of the loans covered foreign banks, as well as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Securities. It was all driven by the simple fact that Merkel said there would be no bailout for Deutsche Bank, which was the major derivatives counterparty problem involving Wall Street. Deutsche Bank had a major derivatives book, and if it failed, it would have taken down US banks. Deutsche Bank was in crisis and then it was too big to merge with Commerzbank. They had to lay off nearly 20,000 staff and a major effort was undertake to try to isolate its toxic assets.
That is why the Fed had to step in as the market maker to bail out Europe for US banks all backed off. I really do not know who makes up these stories to try to hide the truth. But they always do in hopes of preventing panics. This time, the game is up.
