73 The Real Game of Missing Money John W. Snow, 2002—“I intend to continue the commitment to producing and reporting finan- cial information that meets the highest standards of integrity and to provide the American people the accountability and professionalism that they expect from their government.” Remember—these unreliable and essentially “unauditable” financial reports from the U.S. Trea- sury were being issued before the bailouts. A Congressman, who was on the budget and appropriations subcommittee in 2002, told me that he was helpless to address trillions in unconstitutional transactions. How, then, is Congress supposed to grapple with them in 2013? Operations A significant portion of governmental accounting functions, payment systems, and financial operations have been outsourced to private banks and corporations. Indeed, the government has become so dependent on outside corporations that government officials do not have the knowl- edge or operational capacity and independence to assert control. And worse yet, the same private contractors and banks that control the government’s data and financial operations also control access to the bond markets that finance the government’s operations! So, who is really in charge? It is critical to understand that government officials who are technically responsible for financial operations do not have control, nor can they necessarily rely on the government for “protection.” So, how can they fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to the citizenry? The New York Fed member banks serve as depository for the U.S. federal accounts and manage the U.S. Treasury Exchange Stabilization Fund. The Treasury is also dependent on them for an enormous number of servicing functions, such as for processing bonds, mortgages, and foreclo- sures. Finally, the New York Fed member banks and the other primary dealers market Treasury and agency debt to fund ongoing deficits. Within the agencies, private defense contractors provide the primary information and payment systems. Hence, the largest contractor at DOD, where over $3.3 trillion has gone missing, runs many of their accounting and payments systems while it is also selling large weapons systems to DOD. The DOD’s supplier of accounting software and systems is also their largest supplier of weaponry and services, as well as the manager of numerous highly classified and secret weapons programs. As agents, these banks and contractors are the custodians of vast amounts of data from scores of federal agencies, including military and intelligence agencies, and in turn have access to the full range of confidential data about citizens and their taxes and transactions. In effect, the sovereign- ty of the United States Government and its citizens has been transferred to those who control the data and telecommunications systems. There has been a financial coup d’état. The largest defense contractor at HUD on several occasions refused to give senior government officials or me access to data on HUD subsidies that they were managing and for which they operated the payment systems. In essence, the defense contractor was in control, and the govern- ment officials were subservient to them. I assume this was because the HUD subsidies were being run in a manner that was very different from the budget and financial statements described.