[pessimizer]

Loaning someone money without interest is the same as giving them the market rate of interest, which in the case of the banks after the housing bubble bust was somewhere around a billion percent a minute, because all of the banks were insolvent and completely uncreditworthy.

To make it even more obviously a gift, a good bit of it was used to buy treasuries. If I loan you $100 at 0% interest, and you loan it back to me for $5 a day, aren't I just giving you $5 a day?