Wow.

Digg please

Awesome graphic.

OT but has anybody seen any teevee reporting on the FBI investigation of Coleman? Or is it all Blago alla time?

Yes, it would be a good use of time spending it with his family, while he still can.

Here’s Blago at the presser at Republic a couple of days ago. Jaw-dropping: “Go ahead and tape me!” h/t The Daily Beast

Trying to find a place to liveblog the Frank hearings with Kashkari.

EPU’ed

At the Frank hearing, representatives are saying that Kashkari’s program of giving banks money isn’t working. Kash counters that it saved the system and things would have been much worse without it. But when pressed he can’t “prove the conterfactual” and say how much worse it would have been.

Kash admits that there were no requirements on what banks could do with the money. But boilerplate in the contracts says they are supposed to use the money to stimulate lending and the point is made that the banks are not honoring their contracts.

Kash maintains throughout that pumping money into banks will eventually improve the credit situation. He offers no evidence for this view. Similarly, he says that homeowners will also be eventually helped by an ease in credit. He dodges why he won’t back a direct program to help homeowners directly like that proposed by FDIC head Sheila Bair.

Kash says that even in the short time since the meltdown hit he has been surprised by the rapid worsening of conditions. For this alone I would think he is unfit for his job.

Currently, Kash is being raked over the coals because he can’t say if $30 million or $3 million or whatever is a suitable bonus for executives at AIG, even though it is written into the statute.

The man is truly something else.
I would pee down my leg if I knew Fitzgerald was investigating me!

lol – i just got back and am trying to find any liveblogging. thanks!

OT, but I can’t help myself.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader, said his side hadn’t seen the measure yet and wouldn’t agree to votes on the measure Wednesday. “Republicans will not allow taxpayers to subsidize failure,” he said, although McConnell added that the auto situation would be addressed by the end of the week.

If he really believes that, then shouldn’t we get back the money spent on Republican salaries the last eight years.

There could be no greater definition of “failure”.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled post.

Why does everyone from Senator Durbin to Illinois state politicos seem to want to change the system here? If Blago resigns or is impeached, Lt Gov Pat Quinn take the office and does the appointing. What are they afraid of? I hear Quinn has a progressive streak and a fairly sharp mind.

Are these fu**ers trying to cut off a progressive senate appointment more aggressively than they are trying to get rid of an indicted Blago?

Kash: mark to market blah, blah, blah, he has no idea and will defer to SEC which will be issuing a report.

I think the philosophy is more in line with Jane’s post against a Kennedy appointment in NY.
(Not that I disagree with you – I actually do not want a mini election)

It sure does look like that, doesn’t it? Who would be good progressive pick?

Someone observed yesterday that Blagojevich must be insane. I speculate there may be another reason for his admittedly obtuse behavior. Is it possible Fitzgerald has already “gotten to Blagojevich and in exchange has sent him out to “beat thew weeds” and stampede other corrupt legislators?
I fully realize you don’t have to have a three digit IQ to hold office in this country but this guys actions are so ruinous to his own interests he has to either be certifiable or crazy like a fox.
Having said this I am an Illinoisan and yes I voted for this turd. I now have an insight on how Bush voters may feel.
The difference being if “Blago” is convicted I would gladly turn the key on his cell door.

Hensarling (Panel 2) testified out of turn because of another commitment. He’s a nutcase but he did point out that the Congress failed in its responsibility to set up the bailout. He also pointed out what we have been saying here that the Fed’s actions dwarf those of Treasury, trillions vs hundreds of billions. Then he left.

Jan Schakowsky, to name one.

I noticed cspan ran (several times) a long speech / plea from an old African American Illinois State Representative yesterday. His plea was for another African American Senator.. since Obama is leaving and was the only one. My biggest problem with his point was he put forth no names.

kanjorski – when individuals ask for fed assistance they are sometime required to do things like take drug tests. so then what is the logic that we must protect the banks from the stigma of asking receiving fed assistance?

lol – what does it say that we have to rely on the nutcases to tell more of the truth than barney frank et al?

The short answer is that the Blago indictment has thrown politics in Illinois into chaos at a really bad time economically. Since the Senate appointment process has been tainted, the Democrats are moving for a solution that will remove that taint, i.e. an election. But this is Illinois so you have to wonder whose clique would benefit in such an election.

I still don’t understand why they don’t just impeach Blago this afternoon… and move on from there?.

lynch – some of the things treasury has done is hurting public confidence.

Bringing up the fact again that the TARP started out one way and then went a completely different one. Kash: no one could have predicted that things would get so bad so fast (except, of course, dfhs on blogs).

The legislature isn’t even in session at the moment and they are hoping that Blago will resign and save them the trouble. Current timeframe is Blago has until Friday and if he doesn’t they will meet next week.

Blago sure acts like a coke head doing the big dark crash.

This is classic “trickle down.” Will anyone ever call it what it is and remind him that it’s already been proved to be counter-productive?

kashkari – we want all healthy banks to participate. some legal issues to overcome. we want widest possible participation.

me – that does not include the big 2.5

Again the transparency problem. Kash: we have making all the required notifications. Response but we don’t know where the money is going.

damn. trouble with the webstream….

Finally, someone asks what is the definition of a “healthy bank”.

Kash: blah, blah, blah points to regulators, says they look at a lot of different things, again no specifics, what level of reserves or exposures? Kash: we just look at this stuff and decide.

What regulator did you use to assess for AIG?

Kash: Different program.

Me: I would be asking about Goldman Sachs with all of its exposures and their opaque hedge funds with their exposures how come they got a dime?

Are you ever going to tell us who is being paid off in the AIG deal? Who are the counterparties?

Kash: Dodge, dodge.

miller: what regulator did you rely on to assess the viability of aig?

kash: aig was about systemic risk, not viability.

me: wish miller had asked who was responsible for

miller: who were/are aig’s counter parties (derivatives, credit default swaps)?

miller: are you ever going to tell us who got aig’s money?

kash: hard to know who.

miller: not an acceptable answer. who are we paying off?

me: if the counter parties aren’t known, then how does one evaluate systemic risk?

oops. third line should have been:

me: wish miller had asked who was responsible for evaluating systemic risk

Can we please have Patrick Fitzgerald tasked to investigate all this crapola and hold people accountable? Apparently nobody else can/will do it.

Citigroup, why was there no assessment of the assets that were guaranteed? (i.e. why did Citi qualify for this treatment if its position was so lousy)

Kash: We did it for the greater good.

feeney – are you familiar with what was done in response to s&l crisis?

OMFG feeney is referencing hyack’s ”road to surfdom”

me: if the counter parties aren’t known, then how does one evaluate systemic risk?

Kash is just BSing out his ass. He and Paulson are helping whom they want the way they want and then adjust their explanations accordingly. So it’s the regulators, or that some banks aren’t federally regulated, or that it is needed to stabilize the whole system, or that they look at the specifics (which it would be inappropriate to discuss) before they can make a determination.

Yeah, the US economy is too complex to do anything about. So let’s not do anything. He conflates having idiots in charge with a problem of government regulating markets.

Kash is just BSing out his ass. He and Paulson are helping whom they want the way they want and then adjust their explanations accordingly

no one can say that kashkari isn’t a talented guy. too bad his talents run to dissembling.

Again the question: How are banks spending the money?

I agree with selise. It is really something when the nutjobs ask the right questions.

scott – this is the taxpayer’s money. the taxpayers want it to be used to to help homeowners and businesses. the banks are just sitting on the money.

scott – not another dime until we get an accounting of where the money is going.

dodard – no systemic mechanism to report where the money is going.

in response to the hyack comments, i’m going to quote stiglitz from his new vanity fair article (jan edition):

The administration talked about confidence building, but what it delivered was actually a confidence trick. If the administration had really wanted to restore confidence in the financial system, it would have begun by addressing the underlying problems—the flawed incentive structures and the inadequate regulatory system.

Was there any single decision which, had it been reversed, would have changed the course of history? Every decision—including decisions not to do something, as many of our bad economic decisions have been—is a consequence of prior decisions, an interlinked web stretching from the distant past into the future. You’ll hear some on the right point to certain actions by the government itself—such as the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to make mortgage money available in low-income neighborhoods. (Defaults on C.R.A. lending were actually much lower than on other lending.) There has been much finger-pointing at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge mortgage lenders, which were originally government-owned. But in fact they came late to the subprime game, and their problem was similar to that of the private sector: their C.E.O.’s had the same perverse incentive to indulge in gambling.

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

Michelle Bachman, weirdo from MN, each intervention seems to have made the situation worse. Not being given the whole story.

Apparently, Bachman is shocked, shocked I tell you that gambling is going on in the building. Maybe she shouldn’t have been sucking up to Bush all this time. Cause meet effect.

bachmann -

my constituents are not happy with any of the bailouts. feel like we’re not being given the entire story. quotes gao to back that up. people in the us are feeling a real lack of oversight and communication. don’t know who to believe. we don’t have the consent of the people right now. blaming treasury for that.

this is leading to market instability.

worries that the solutions won’t lead to free markets.

kashkari – serious crisis, blah, blah…. list the financial institutions that have collapsed. this is not a joke.

bachmann – i’m not saying this is a joke, i’m saying we don’t have the confidence of the american people.

we are several threads behind… i propose we move the live bloggin up a couple to: Blagojevich Scandal: Jesse Jackson Jr. Outed as Senate Candidate 5

OK