Ira Glass: Hey there everybody, today we have secret recordings taped inside one of the most powerful institutions in this country. It’s a place we pretty much almost never get a
glimpse inside. And they’re revealing, and in lots of ways very disturbing. But to understand what they’re about and why they’re so interesting, you actually need a little context. So I need to take you back to the financial crisis.

After the financial meltdown in 2008, there was a lot of attention and a lot of blame heaped on the one institution that was in a position to notice the problems that led to the
meltdown and do something about them before disaster hit. That institution is the Federal Reserve –The Fed –and, in particular, its office in New York City, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s responsible for regulating the banks on Wall Street, which is to say some of the biggest banks in the world. It’s supposed to monitor what they do, it’s supposed to make sure they don’t break rules or take risks that could bring down the financial system.