Fed Chief, Ben Bernanke Doesn’t Know Where $500 Billion in U.S. Taxpayer Money Went

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ventured to the Hill this week for his semi-regular beating at the hands of freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

Grayson’s Fed exchanges have become small sensations online; a May grilling of the Fed inspector general approaching a million views on YouTube and roughly another million on other video players.

The swaps represent a radical intervention by the Fed in the global money supply but have barely been covered by the media. They are done without approval from or oversight by the Congress or the White House.

Bernanke, asked by Grayson what the central banks did with the U.S. money, replied: “I don’t know.”

Grayson, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said that the lending program represents a startling amount of decision-making authority vested with one man.

He put the $500 billion-plus lending program in perspective. “I see all the time, still to date, actual recorded votes on $100,000-dollar elements on these actual appropriations bills. Now compare that to the fact that the Federal Reserve handed out $500 billion dollars, which is literally five million times as much…and they don’t even know who ended up with the money,” he said.

“Was the money used to buy U.S. treasuries and prop up the dollar? They don’t know. Was the money used to bail out European automakers? They don’t know. He literally doesn’t know what happened to $500 billion dollars,” he said. “I find that extremely disturbing.”