The Federal Reserve names names

This final note today, which comes in the form of a riddle. What do the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States and Goldman Sachs have in common?

Answer? They really, really don’t like being told they have to give up information. This morning, after the Supreme Court ruled it had to, the Fed released the names of the banks that got emergency loans back at the depths of the financial crisis. NIne hundred computer files that have to be opened and read individually. No index, no search capability. Pretty much the same way Goldman Sachs did its data-dump on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Borrowers from the Fed, by the way, ranged from big to small: mighty Goldman Sachs all the way to the Bank of Yazoo City, Miss.