To the list of mega-corporations bailed out by the United States government, we now must add — Europe. In an announcement that rocked financial markets worldwide, the European Central Bank announced today a concerted effort in combination with four other major central banks — the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Switzerland, and yes, the United States Federal Reserve — to use dollars rather than euros in an attempt to paper over the European Union’s economic woes.

Starting in October, the Federal Reserve and other major central banks will begin auctioning allotments of dollars to the European Central Bank, which will then use the new money to shore up shaky European megabanks. The allotments, which will have three-month maturities and will be structured like typical repurchase operations (“repos”), will be issued against euro-denominated collateral and repaid, with interest, in dollars. That, at least, is the theory.

Currency swaps involving the Federal Reserve and other central banks are nothing new, and have been a focal concern of Fed opponents like Congressman Ron Paul, who has long suggested that much of the Fed’s financial chicanery has been carried out in the form of such currency deals with foreign central banks, in total secrecy.

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