The first independent audit of the Federal Reserve in its 29-year history was conducted by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and is entitled “Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Policies and Processes for Managing Emergency Assistance.”

Bearing in mind that more than 100 U.S. shipyards could be updated and revitalized for just a few hundred million dollars, thereby creating permanent jobs for every one of our nation’s unemployed, here’s what the “Fed” has done in recent years.

This can be seen on page 31 of that audit – The total lending for the Fed’s “broad-based emergency programs” was $ 16,115,000,000,000. That’s right. More than 16 trillion dollars. The four largest recipients, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, were given more than a trillion dollars each. The fifth largest recipient was Barclays PLC. The 8th was the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, PLC. The 9th was Deutsche Bank AG. The 10th was UBS AG. Those four institutions got almost a trillion dollars each – and none of them is an American bank. Is that rubbing salt in our wounds, or what?

And on pages 135 and 196 – Sixty percent of the $ 738 billion “Commercial Paper Funding Facility” went to subsidiaries of foreign banks. 36 percent of the $ 71 billion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility also went to subsidiaries of foreign banks.

On page 205 we saw that – Separate and apart from these “broad-based emergency program” loans were an additional $ 10,057,000,000,000 in “currency swaps.” In these “currency swaps,” the Fed handed dollars to foreign central banks – no strings attached – to fund bailouts in other countries. These “currency swaps” and the “broad-based emergency program” loans, combined, totaled more than $ 26,000,000,000,000 – that’s 26 trillion dollars – almost $ 100,000 from every man, woman and child in America.

On page 129 – In October of 2008, the Fed gave $ 60,000,000,000 to the Swiss National Bank with the specific understanding that the money was to go to UBS, a Swiss bank.

But we’re just scratching the surface. There are many more trillions of misspent Fed dollars that the GAO audit has turned up. Trillions. But no new jobs were created. In contrast to that, for the past ten years we’ve gone over the cost of revitalizing our shipyards, creating jobs for about 50 million people, building about a thousand of our patented container ships every year, installing our patented storage, retrieval and delivery systems in our container terminals, and creating an entirely new and profitable short sea shipping system – actions which will end, once and for all, our “Great Recession” – and the entire expense would come to less than ONE TRILLIION DOLLARS!

But the Fed – fully authorized and endorsed by our elected leaders – sees things differently.

Goodness (and Congress) only knows where those Fed trillions really ended up.