Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Pro Publica tracks the bailout

Maybe it has something to do with today being tax day -- Pro Publica launches a very cool Eye on the Bailout

Give a dollar to a pol, get $18,195 back

Glenn Reynolds asks whether employees in the financial industry, always a big donor to political campaigns, will contribute to other candidates or curtail their giving. He cites the AIG bonus flap, and Congress' reaction to it (including the outrage of members and the House passing a bill that would tax 90 percent of those bonuses away) as evidence of the fickleness of Congressional favor. Reynolds writes,

BankTracker debuts at Investigative Reporting Workshop

I've been doing some Webinars over the past few days for reporters to show off some features of SubsidyScope.com for looking at bailout data from Treasury and the FDIC. One of the things I keep telling them is that lots of groups are looking at this data, building tools for parsing and analyzing it, and they should stay tuned.

Making the bailout more transparent

It's old news -- several trillion dollars ago -- but back in 2008 the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the FDIC started working in tandem on a series of measures to stabilize the financial system. The Federal Reserve's aid is doled our or loaned out in secrecy, despite the dogged attempts of Bloomberg News to pry loose the data; the FDIC has released some, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by our colleagues at SubsidyScope.com.

Bailout money mystery

Associated Press reports that 21 banks that received funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program aren't talking about what they've done with the money. No wonder this headline seems so plausible...

Madoff's firm lobbied for earmarks

Yesterday I was talking to some folks about whether, given the trillions potentially committed to bailouts, there's any sense in continuing to probe earmarks. I say of course there is.

Financial crises: How we got here

A couple of interesting stories on the financial crises. The Washington Post's Jill Drew writes a solid piece explaining how players in the financial system spread the risk from subprime mortgages through the economy. A bit light on the role played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which get attention only in the accompanying interactive graphic). The article itself is probably a bit long to read online, but worth the effort.

Financial Bailout: Will Geithner Comply with Bloomberg's FOIA Request?

It's old news now: yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama announced he was picking Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as his Treasury Secretary.

Does Congress think Detroit is a good investment?

It appears that <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081117/D94GUIK80.html">the auto bailout</a> is stalled for now, as congressional leadership and the Bush administration have come to loggerheads over providing $25 to $50 billion in loans to General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler.

Financial Bailout: Correlation in contributions and votes in House

Financial Bailout: Are congressional leaders invested in the crisis?

Members of Congress continue to debate the bailout package that may well affect the bottom line of every taxpayer in the country, as well as those of big banks, brokerages, and other financial firms. While they hear from numerous experts, including distressed Wall Street titans, on the dangers facing their firms, what sort of exposure do members themselves have if those firms fail?

Financial Bailout: Who does Dodd see at his fundraisers?

Among Sen. Christopher Dodd's top career donors are employees, their family members and PACs of the following players in the nation's financial meltdown: Citigroup ("written off and lost $53.6 billion through the credit crunch so far, which is more than any other bank or broker,") Bear Stearns ("Bear Stearns's mortgage business, a big driver of profits, has been eviscerated,"), SAC Capital Partners (vehemently denies charge that they helped bring down Bear Stearns), American International Group (saved by an emergency $85 billion rescue), Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley (each of which are morphing into bank holding companies), Greenwich Capital Markets ("a top issuer of mortgage-backed securities in the subprime market, Royal Bank of Scotland (which owns Greenwich Capital Markets), Credit Suisse Group (which misled some investors about its auction rate securities), Merrill Lynch (which needed Bank of America to rescue it), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (which bought Bear Stearns) and Lehman Brothers (which failed).