Why aren't banks lending?? gee....I wonder...

Mises.org, the world center of the Austrian School of economics and libertarian political and social theory, contains many interesting and in-depth articles. Although many of us are up-to-date on political issues, the nitty-gritty details of the country's economic woes are not well understood. And the government certainly prefers it that way. With banks back on their feet, having paid back TARP bailout 'loans' with interest, why aren't people able to get mortgages? The linked article reveals that there is an incestuous symbiotic relationship between government and the banks, and WE the little people are simply getting screwed. Serfdom, anyone??

(excerpt from the article...)
This chart represents the amount of money our nation's banks keep on deposit with the Federal Reserve. So you see, the newly created money is being held by the banks, who instead of loaning it out to folks who would like to refinance their houses and businesses who might expand and hire (which is what the Fed intended), they (the banks) just redeposit the free money back with the Fed, and earn massive amounts of interest.

What? Are you kidding me? The banks got bailed out from billions of dollars in bad loans that they issued, then they got literally $1.2 trillion (as you can see from the chart above) of free money that they then turned around and invested in Treasuries, the interest on which is one of Obama's biggest line-item budget expenses. Are we living in an Ayn Rand novel? How would you like to get free money to invest, the interest on which is guaranteed by the government's taxation authority (and guns)?

http://mises.org/daily/5223/Charting-the-Course-to-7-Gas