Federal Reserve’s recently revealed documents disclose who benefited from a government loan program during 2008. The data shows that Federal Reserve secretly loaned trillions of dollars to major companies including Harley-Davidson. The motorcycle manufacturer got $2.3 billion to help cover operating expenses during the economic crisis. Bloomberg says the money was from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, which also dispersed money to General Electric, Verizon, Barclay’s and McDonalds.
Harley took help from Fed
Former Fed Vice-President Donald L. Kohn defended the transaction and said: “I think our actions prevented an even more disastrous outcome.” According to him, without the loans „liquidity would have dried up even more than it did, asset prices would have fallen even more than they did, and economic activity and employment would have fallen further and faster then they did.”
