RUSH: Nat in Falls Church, Virginia. Nat, thank you for calling. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, good to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: So this is a little off topic, but I heard you mention it before. So it’s all in the news today that Citigroup is being fined $7 billion for the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: The media is putting it forward like it’s a big deal. You know, they really paid for it. But I just wanted to point out to you and to all your listeners that the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup $2.5 trillion in 2008, and that $7 billion comes out to about 0.28% of what they received from the Federal Reserve. Not the government, not TARP, the Federal Reserve, which is made-up currency. So I think that’s important to keep in context.

RUSH: Good point, but let’s go back. Before TARP, or at the same time as TARP (I think it’s actually a little bit before TARP and before the financial crisis bailouts), their… Folks, before you have a conniption fit, there was reliable news that the Federal Reserve had lent, spent, given, whatever $3 trillion to somebody, and nobody knew where it went. There were massive requests from various members of Congress and others for the Fed to come up and say who got this money. I can remember those stories like it was yesterday, and you’re right. This was not TARP. Now, I did not know, Nat, that Citibank got $2.7 trillion of it.

CALLER: Well, according to the 2010 GAO report — which, you know, they call an audit. It’s not technically an audit, but it’s the first glimpse into what the Federal Reserve does that the government and the public has been able to see. So you can look at that report up from the GAO, Government Accountability Office, and they list it out, and it’s actually $16 trillion total that they gave. It was $10 trillion domestically and $6 trillion to foreign banks, and nobody knows about this. Nobody pays attention to this. But it’s incredible because it’s a massive amount of money. It’s not the debt, and it’s all fiat currency. So it could have massive repercussions for the banking system.

RUSH: Well, yeah. I’m aware of $3 trillion, not $16 trillion, as you say. But I’m aware of $3 trillion that was mysteriously… I mean, it was admitted to, it was acknowledged, but nobody would say where it went — and then TARP came along. Look, I think it’s rather obvious that the financial industry has ties to former financial industry execs in the government, and they look out for each other, and they make sure they don’t fail. They make sure no matter what happens, they get propped up.

That’s probably what was going on there, and it probably still is.