Without Congress’s, the public’s, or even shareholders’ knowledge, firms like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse borrowed $80 billion from the Federal Reserve in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ collapse. But before you blame Wall Street for covering their losses at taxpayers’ expense, just know that Ben Bernanke was practically begging them to take the cash. Although the Fed’s main lending agency was charging 0.5 percent interest at the time, banks got the funds for the rock bottom interest rate of 0.01 percent. [Bloomberg]
