Investigate the New York Federal Reserve Over Secret Tapes

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is facing accusations that it showed "extreme deference" to Goldman Sachs, a bank it is supposed to oversee.

The New York branch of the Federal Reserve system is in charge of regulating the biggest Wall Street banks. However, the Fed has been accused of being too cozy with the banks it is supposed to oversee. For example, during the run-up to the 2008 financial collapse and subsequent $700 billion bailout, the Fed gave trillions of dollars in then-secret aid to banks, firms and even Caterpillar, a tractor company.[1]

The latest allegations resulted when a whistleblower - a former examiner at the Fed - gave 46 hours of secret tapes to NPR's "This American Life" and the investigative journalists at ProPublica. The tapes allegedly reveal that the Fed failed to take action on "a deal that the top Fed guy stationed inside Goldman called ‘legal but shady.’"[2]

The Fed has denied the whistleblower’s claims.

In response to the secret tapes, Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), who chaired the Congressional investigation into the Wall Street bailout in 2008, has called for oversight hearings. She has been joined by fellow Senate Banking Committee member Sherrod Brown (OH).[3]

As Senator Warren said in calling for the hearings: “It’s our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs.”[4] Please support her call for Congress to investigate the relationship between the New York Fed and banks like Goldman Sachs.

[1] https://medium.com/bull-market/secret-goldman-sachs-tapes-latest-in-long-history-of-the-fed-burying-wall-streets-bodies-3c7d3fe5066f
[2] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/elizabeth-warren-new-york-fed_n_5896778.html
[4] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/new-york-fed-denies-allegations-of-bank-supervision-lapse.html