Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Identify Bank Loans

Add this to the list of actions the Fed has taken to slow and/or "protect" banks from coming clean on what is on (or off) their books. Hard to have a functioning financial system -- particularly one founded on faith and trust -- when information is kept hidden from public view.

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.