Interesting article in Bloomberg that suggests the Fed likely overstepped the law:
Fed Bypasses Emergency-Loan Policy on Rate for Securities Firms
This has ominous potential ramifications when we consider that the Fed has probably expanded its own regulatory powers beyond those enumerated in the Act that created it. If we allow government (or quasi-government, as the Fed is) to expand its powers without check based upon the idea that a panic or crisis validates it, freedom will progressively wane and America will one day awaken, only to find out that it, like Rip Van Winkle, has awakened in a different world than it thought -- one of tyranny, but in the "land of the free".
Rick Santelli, one of CNBC's most experienced and market-savvy reporters, correctly perceived this emerging trend when he said that the Fed shouldn't be empowered to become the ultimate owner/financier of all the real estate in the United States unless we wish to add the hammer and sickle to the flag. If the Fed, under the guise of crisis, can simply broaden its own powers, we are headed down an ever more slippery slope, greased by the ever-growing powers it has usurped -- and that were slowly, imperceptibly lost by the American people through their own numbed torpor and apathy.
