Tweet
Tell members of Congress that you want them to take action here. I will be delivering your comments to Congress in the coming week.
In an interview published in yesterday’s New York Times, President Obama says that it could take another $750 billion to bail out the banks beyond the $700 billion already approved. Yet serious questions surround the money already distributed to Wall Street, and attempts to determine how it was disbursed have been stonewalled.
Consider:
• At a January 13 House Financial Services Committee meeting, Rep. Alan Grayson asked Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn to provide the names of the banks that received $1.2 trillion from the Fed since September 2008. As you can see in the Youtube above, Kohn refused. Chairman Barney Frank promised to hold hearings to look into this, but none have been scheduled.
• Republican and Democratic Senators alike, from Richard Shelby and Jim Bunning to Chris Dodd, last week demanded that Kohn supply the names of the banks that got $50 billion in taxpayer dollars that went out through AIG to pay off its derivative trading partners at the full value of their contracts, shielding them from any losses despite the fact that those values had tumbled. Again, Kohn refused.
• Bloomberg estimates that since the crisis began, the government has spent more than $11.7 trillion in the form of government loans, spending or guarantees to save the financial system. Bloomberg has filed numerous suits under the Freedom of Information Act, which requires federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public, to learn where this money went. The Fed refuses to comply.
• Timothy Geithner’s bad bank funding plan is, according to David Simon, essentially the plan that Goldman Sachs has been shopping around for months. Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein was the only one representing a financial firm at the September meeting when the decision was made to bail out AIG. We now learn that Goldman was one of the big recipients of the AIG back door money dump. Says economist Nouriel Roubini: "let us not kid each other: The $162 billion bailout of AIG is a nontransparent, opaque and shady bailout of the AIG counter-parties: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and other domestic and foreign financial institutions."
• The House passed the TARP Reform and Accountability Act on January 16, which would provide increased conditions, transparency and accountability for Wall Street bailout funds. The Senate is refusing to take up the legislation.
• Even as banks are receiving federal bailout money, they are gouging credit card holders to squeeze them for profits during tough economic times and spending taxpayer dollars to successfully lobby against reform.
• The conflict of interest involved when bond ratings agencies like Moody’s are paid by the issuers of securities whose creditworthiness they are rating is tremendous. It played a huge part in the current economic collapse as AAA ratings were given out to mortgage-backed securities that nobody would have bought otherwise. But the SEC says there are no plans to make these kinds of structural reforms.
As Yves Smith says, "Wake up and smell the coffee. The public purse is being looted and we the great unwashed are being fed pablum. Just because the perps work for once esteemed institutions and are typically treated with deference does not change the nature of the undertaking."
Before Congress approves any more funds, the public needs to know where all our money has gone. The government needs to tell us what happened to the AIG money and open the books on its other lending facilities. They need to move swiftly to re-regulate a system whose rules have been written by bank lobbyists for their own benefit, and until they do, there will be no public confidence in our financial system. Restoring that trust is critical in getting our economy back on its feet, and additional funds should be forthcoming until that happens.
We’ll be having guests on FDL to talk about their views on the need for transparency this week. Scheduled so far:
- TUESDAY 7 pm ET: Alan Grayson, (D-FL), member of the House Financial Services Committee
- TUESDAY 4:30pm ET: Economist James K. Galbraith, who holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair of Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should To.
- THURSDAY 3:30pm ET: David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times former reporter and author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense [and Stick You with the Bill]
- THURSDAY: Mark Pittman, Bloomberg News (finance journalist who has covered the collapse — Bloomberg has filed many FOIA requests and done tremendous work on transparency)
- FRIDAY 11am ET: Economist Rob Johnson, formerly a managing director at Soros Funds Management and chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee.
- TBA: Yves Smith, financial blogger ("Naked Capitalism") who currently heads Aurora Advisors, a New York-based management consulting firm. She has written for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Slate, The Conference Board Review, Institutional Investor, The Daily Deal and the Australian Financial Review.
- TBD: Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He is frequently cited in economics reporting in major media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, and National Public Radio. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited (UK), and his blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting.
Tell members of Congress that you want them to take action here. I will be delivering your comments to Congress in the coming week.
Related posts:
- Rep. Ed Towns Subpoenas New York Fed for AIG Documents
- Early Morning Swim: Arianna Huffington Discusses “Move Your Money” on Countdown
- Texas School Board Educates Congress, Treasury, Federal Reserve Board
- Geithner’s New York Fed Ordered AIG to Violate Securities Law in 2008
- House Oversight Committee Will Hold Hearing on Geithner/NY Fed/AIG Scandal
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Wolverines!
What are the payday loan companies doing? That is where people with jobs go when no one else will loan.
Here’s a link to a Bill Moyers interviewing Simon Johnson (former head of the IMF) on the “oligarchization” of the U.S. economy. Scary shit
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..ript1.html
“BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that the banking industry trumps the president, the Congress and the American government when it comes to this issue so crucial to the survival of American democracy?”
“SIMON JOHNSON: I don’t know. I hope they don’t trump it. But the signs that I see this week, the body language, the words, the op-eds, the testimony, the way they’re treated by certain Congressional committees, it makes me feel very worried.”
It’s telling that a Republican like Bunning would be for transparency. He’s so out to lunch, so detached from his party’s power structure that he’s unaware of its raison d’etre: to redistribute money to Wall Street. He’s the madman who speaks the truth.
Shelby, on the other hand, is using the word nationalization as the bogeyman CNBC would have it be, while actually espousing nationalizion as it’s understood by knowledgeable people, i.e., we need to “close some of these banks down”. The Republican Party is in such chaos they can’t get their marching orders out to their minions. Last thing Republicans heard, in autumn, was that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was to blame for this all.
The AIG money apparently went to pay off “bets” made by foreign banks. I would guess that alot of the bank bailout money is going to pay off counter parties on CDS – bets or derivatives.
Banks decided to leverage big time to make big time returns, but their deals are / have gone south and now they are completely busted.
Time to toss out the gamblers and turn banks into a public utility where they charge a point or two above the rate of interest they get funds for from the gov. MoTU’s don’t like that model – not sexy and not enough big payoffs and transaction fees / commissions and so forth. Too effin bad. Let them take their money to Vagas.
The gov needs to pay the banks because the counter parties will refuse to by our debt if they aren’t paid off. They’re up sh*t’s creek too.
Citi bust
BoA bust
AIG Bust
I read a great paper by Robert W. Manning this week about how low income people have basically been abandoned by traditional banks to the mercy of predatory lenders, and then they make financial relationships with them so they get the profits.
It’s truly disgusting.
http://www.allacademic.com/met….._index.htm
Banksters obviously think that they’re in charge. Is it possible to revoke their charters?
What about lawsuits shouldn’t investors like the big pension funds that can only invest in certain companies that have AAA ratings or lets face it most funds and regular investors would not invest in a bank like BOA if they knew the truth.
The rating agencies are facing a ton of lawsuits sooner or later. The only way Moody’s can save itself is by pointing out that after Enron CEO’s have to certify their accounting statements.
So when do we see the Bank CEO’s going to jail and their accountants?
no taxation without transparency. it’s as simple as that.
I saw Shelby and others (Schumer, more) yesterday essentially saying that the government should take over the banks. I could not believe it.
Jane, this is OT, but tomorrow Progressive Democrats of America are faxing our letters of denial of coverage and medical bills to Congress. I hope someone here will help promote that action. I just got a letter of denial for allergies and mild osteopenia, if you can believe it. I am in the pool with uninsurables now, no choice of hospital.
I agree with everything you said can we just get everyone who bet on CDS’s their money back and ban that entire market?
Heck even a 10% return and shut down the market because we do not have the cash to back this debt.
Heh. Jane and some DFHs seem to be laboring under the delusion that the U.S. is some sort of representational democracy where voters matter.
I would like to tell Congress that the American people can handle the truth. Now provide it, and let’s get on – pronto – with making the necessary changes to prevent this from happening again.
Link not working
Actually, I think Shelby was promoting that the banks should fail.
There should be no “banking privacy” when that money is based upon bailouts from OUR hard-earned wages (and taxes derived therefrom). Furthermore, privacy should not allow the banks to collude with tax evasion or criminal activity.
If a bank wants to operate in the US, purchase US assets, or serve as the financial accopunt holder of a US based business or resident then it needs to be transparent to the judicial arms of the government. Otherwise it’s just a “money-launderer”. Littl;e guys that do this go to jail for decades…why should these executives be any different?
I’m sure a push for that would be countered with a deeply felt and passionate plea to give retroactive immunity to the poor bond companies who were only trying to save us from the terrorists.
Shelby was part of Dodd’s committee asking Kohn for the names of banks who had received funds, too. It’s in the NYT article.
Try this one.
jane, a suggestion–rearrange it a little…
it reads as if no funds should be approved until public trust is restored–that means never. it is a specific demand placed after a generic statement.
it should read that no funds should be approved until we know where the money has gone and to re-regulate and bring transparency to the financial institutions….
just rearrange it a little.
example-
Petition Text:
Dear Members of Congress:
The public needs to know where all our money has gone. Restoring public trust is critical in getting our economy back on its feet. We ask that you move swiftly to re-regulate and bring transparency to a financial system whose rules have been written by bank lobbyists for their own benefit. No additional bank bailout funds should be approved until that happens.
: )
thanks for the efforts on our behalf.
Should the U.S. declare a GWOFT? (War on Global Financial Terrorism)
Great list of speakers lined up Jane
what a fabulous line up – thank you!
will it be permitted to ask more general economics questions, beyond the issue of transparency, if we wait until later in the threads?
Good suggestion. Done.
Thanks:)
page not found, but does give home page link
http://www.allacademic.com/
I think they will be pretty open discussions. We really just want to get the people who have been writing about the situation talking with folks online and answering their questions, opening up the conversation about what it is our elected officials should be doing, because nobody is really talking about this.
So, yes. Fire away.
Nice summation. Would be intersting to find out the extent of organized crime tentacles involved with AIG.
Crazy, no? ;)
The CDS market should be declared illegal. It is insurance plain and simple only it skirted regulation and failed to back it up with adequate reserves. If I were to go out and shoot someone because he was playing loud music all night and called it Annoying Person Elimination could I expect to not be charged with murder?
Good Morning Jane and Firedogs,
Jane, I am headed over to your Comments to Congress link, but before I go I have a question:
how in bloody hell is it that a financially illiterate waitress read something here 7 months ago that the Oracle of Omaha is just now saying today ?!?!?
we simply do not have time for any more of their delusional stalling bs
(oh yeah, I learned that here as well !)
thanks for the opportunity to have my say with these klowns (again!)
Sorry for being off topic so early in the morning, but as I am listening to NPR Morning Edition, I am getting more and more frustrated, that NPR is pushing the Republican agenda every chance they take. Either by giving a repub. viewpoint on a particular issue (economic this morning-what the repub said on a sunday talk show, without any democratic viewpoint) and numerous other examples (just listen for a half hour and you will get a good idea).
Would you fellow pups be willing to send a message (however it might be easiest for you) to NPR about this, if you agree that what I have said is happening.
And if wonder why I listen to NPR, it is solely because I can’t stand commercials on regular radio, including Air America and other stations. But even with that in mind, any public funded radio should not have anything short of “hint” of political ideology.
Thanks for taking a moment to hear me out. AB.
Rick Santelli was right about one thing investors being mad now blaming poor people for getting a tiny bit of bailout money is just a mean GOP trick.
But I bet the WallStreeters who are loosing everything would welcome seeing the rating agencies and the CEO’s who lied (I can’t believe they were dumb enough to lie after Enron) about their financial statements getting prosecuted.
Civil Court cases should be next.
thanks, i was hoping you took it right.
has more slam power.
i noticed it because i always write things out of order….
always have to rearrange my sentences and it’s then it’s right. my comments here are always out of order.
there is a novelist who would break down her drafts into sentences onto pieces of paper and rearrange them on her bed. can’t remember her name. that’s who i got it from. so, when i edit, that’s the first thing i do, scan the order…then the individual words.
thanks for what you are doing. my brain is still jello trying to weed through all of it. your forums here are helping it all ‘gel’.
Fuck the poor, save the overclass.
-G
jane et al. – i’ve been waiting for a good thread to post this quote. i transcribed it from a talk that simon johnson gave with martin feldstein at MIT last month, “Challenges to the Global Economy”.
simon johnson was previously chief economist for the IMF and is now prof at MIT Sloan School of Business – someone i would have previously thought of as extremely Establishment in the worst sense of the word.
here’s how he introduced himself at the MIT talk:
David Kay Johnston’s book is excellent. This guy really knows the story. Enron, John Snow’s CSX and Amtrack, the private golf courses, and more.
Privatized Profit and Socialize expenses/losses.
Interestingly, last I checked, Mr. Johnson stated that he is a Republican.
Big GOPers pay for content control thats how David Brooks got on and Tucker even had his own show there briefly I believe getting NPR and PBS back to balanced reporting should be a goal for Obama.
Brooks and the other GOPers lie unchallenged there all the time.
Gave up on Nice Polite Rethugs years ago. There’s a great website that keeps track of their unfortunate devolution:
http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/
I’m thinking this guy reads the Lake:)
at the top of the page is ’spotlight’. it is a function that lets you send this post 10 at a time to all kinds of media….
when you click on a different media, hit ‘update’ to get the new list. here’s the radio one–so you can see the possibilities-
http://www.thespotlightproject…..e-it-goes/
and you can send individual emails to the npr show….
http://www.npr.org
and to the ombudsman..the ombudsman posts letters on his update letter online.
mornin’
if my bp could take it, I’d link to some 18 months old Atrios posts discussing the ratings agencies complicity . . . aarrgghh
i listened to most of that hearing. what i heard was dodd ask very politely. bunning on the other hand DEMANDED to know. he threatened to put any further request for $ on hold and do everything he could to block it.
damn depressing when bunning shows up the D senators (especially as it happened twice last week – once in senate budget and one in senate banking).
excellent! thank you.
The Dow seems headed for 5,000 we need to know what the banks invest in forget protecting secret investment strategies obviously their secrets plans don’t work.
The public will flee banks if they knew the truth well dollar menu priced bank stocks suggest that has already happened panic can be worse than the truth.
Without the truth nobody sane risks investing in banks apparently even other banks.
Or you could Nationalize all the banks but then you put CDS on the federal debt.
End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cut military spending 20% if your house is on fire now is not the time to save someone else’s house.
yves smith at naked capitalism, simon johnson at baseline scenario, brad sester at follow the money, krugman, roubini at rge monitor, ….
i also posted the spotlight thing on this post so that pups would help send this far and wide so that we can perhaps get quite another benefit from this week’s guests……we want people and media to be informed, but they have to know where to go to find it…..i think this would be a good thing to send around. just seeing the guest list would be enough for many of them to a least read the posts, if not participate in the forum.
that’s exactly right – the banks have to be declared bankrupt (or whatever the proper term is) just before they are nationalized (put into receivership or whatever you want to call it). otherwise it’s just a scheme to put their debt on the the us gov (that means us) and bailout the bond holders (which i expect was what greenspan had in mind).
you are right = financial terrorism
throw them in jail and nationalize all of them
yes, yes, Spotlight is the shizz… and don’t forget the “Region” option – very helpful last week saying Howdy to media in Congresswoman Tauscher’s district :D
I think even the commentors here were on this story back then on late late nite. But despite that nobody I think was unaffected by the housing,banking, Dow crashing, lack of credit available, jobs etc crisis.
I am sure I’m missing something.
I’m not even sure the stimulus has started yet but the GOP is trying to blame Obama.
Now is the time to cut war spending and use it back home.
Now is the time for real numbers from the banks and a second stimulus package before the dow gets to 5,000.
Or forget National Healthcare with that many voters unemployed we will get that America’s destroyed pension funds will all be nationalized and paid for by taxing the rich.
If the GOP want to go Galt well Europe the taxes are already that high. the countries like Iceland, Ireland Estonia etc that had lower taxes their governments are in worse shape than us right now.
i’d actually like to demand that summers and geithner be fired before congress consider giving the banksters anymore $. but i guess i’ll have to wait on that one.
What the credit card companies are doing should be outlawed too. They have across the board raised Their usurious rates by an amount that should be what they are charging all by itself. This is financial rape by these companies. This is just serving to excerbate the problems being faced by the people. Ultimately this can lead to a revolution as it has in the past
http://www.scholarsandrogues.c…..#more-7945
You could ask that of each of the speakers Jane gots us this week and if the speakers would like to replace them or who would they like to replace them.
I want the question of would 20% cuts in military spending and ending both wars now would be enough to turn the economy around.
More Fuel for the Tell Congress Now fire
per NYT, WH postponing its plan to produced a detailed plan to overhaul the country’s financial regulatory system in April,
my standing apology if prev posted
Funny Christians used to be against charging interest on loans but then they gave that up and went after abortion a few centuries later.
knowing that i’m probably asking for the moon…
jane, is there any way stiglitz might be willing to come talk with us? he gave a fabulous talk friday night that included, among other things, how we are being ripped off (hmmm… maybe i’ll transcribe that part too)
OH NO! SCIENCE!
can ya stand it ? just caught the signing in real time m’self
Praise Yaweh !
Because we hope they are getting a real plan not a Summers/Geithner approved bank lobbyist written plan as we expected them too?
Or has the problems gotten so bad that even more funny numbers must be massaged?
Yea but that weasel-shit Cantor doesn’t like it!
Long live Eliot Spitzer.
Wow, Jane!
I was pretty tolerant and ambivilant (’it’s a big problem, it’s gonna take a lot of time, yadda, yadda)… then, over the weekend I was able to catch up on the CSPAN archive of last week’s Senate Subcommittee on Offshore Banking.
I’ll just say that it was ‘an eye opener’ and that Carl Levin did himself proud.
I don’t think we really have a very good idea WTF is going on.
It does appear that there’s a move to pile on Geithner any time the ‘investors’ sense that they might not get paid at par for their reckless gambling. So if any of the guests has thoughts on that topic, I’ll be particularly interested.
Also on the economic illiteracy of too many in Congress, who seem to be using economic models from 1922. Not helpful.
Would be great if Spitzer could be hired to run a class action lawsuit on behalf of the American People against the banksters and other fraudsters.
This is a great idea. I wonder if Krugman, Stiglitz, and Roubini are available.
Re Bush, Obama, Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke, Kashkari, Kohn, etc., I don’t think transparency means what they think it means.
There are all kinds of places where transparency has not occurred. For example,
Treasury eventually after much delaying came up with which banks received TARP money but it never explained the process by which these banks were approved for such funds, and it never released the names of banks that were rejected or the reasons for their rejection. The idea was this might cause runs on them. But if these banks were so insolvent that not even Treasury wanted to touch them, why weren’t they taken over immediately by FDIC. And if they were in better shape, then why didn’t they receive the money? And of course how the banks used the money has only dribbled out in bits and pieces, not through Treasury but through some of the oversight boards that were tasked with monitoring TARP.
The Fed has a bunch of programs which have received no scrutiny. One allowed banks to park various of their crap assets at the Fed in exchange for loans. Which banks did this, how much money was involved, and where the money went we have no idea.
There was another program set up to backstop money market funds. The funds were allowed to choose (secretly) who was to give them these funds and again who received what was not publicly disclosed.
There are also large currency swap programs with other central banks. These have been used to prop up other currencies. But we don’t know anything about how they have been used.
Then there is a program to pay banks interest on their reserves. How much money has been spent on this and to whom, again we don’t know.
All of these programs are part of the reaction to the financial system’s problems. But none of them get to the secrecy surrounding the crap assets which are the heart of it all. 18 months into this, we still don’t know which banks are holding which crap assets, what the value of these are (and yes, they can be accurately valued), and how insolvent the banks are. Nor do we know how many of these are missing crucial documentation, or how many show evidence of fraud.
(I will save this I suppose and use in the discussions.)
man I hope you are right about the former although I’ve spent some time this am pondering the latter . . .eg, is that what prompted Buffett’s pronouncement. . . . did someone level with Warren just yesterday ??
Great question ask the speakers Jane gots lined up.
eCHAN said Warren was giving a bad interview this morning maybe he did hear some real bad news. The government delaying a plan to overhaul the country’s financial regulatory system this week I would normally say is not an accident.
But in this economy bad news is coming at us from everywhere.
off the top of my head, so i probably forgot some stuff:
This is why I think our descent into depression will be long and deep. Geithner and Summers are actively promoting programs guaranteed to produce such an outcome and it is very hard to see Obama getting rid of them outside of 18 months.
First, as some have said, we should fire Geithner. Then we should fire Geithner. The we should run him out of town on the donkey he rode in on. The we should hang Paulson and get our money back from Greenspan. Bernanke needs a psyche exam and AIG and Citi need their clocks , boardrooms and exec offices vacuum cleaned.
We have lost control of our own money (and futures) to a bunch of “oligarchic” robber barons. Ask away. Hammer (Hamsher?). Don’t take no for answer and don’t settle for BS. We can get that from the government.
I want all the CEO’s who quit the banks in the last 5 years to have their golden parachutes frozen until we look at the banks books to see if they were deserved.
If the ex CEO’s complain then their ex employers get no cash.
BTW I just saw this stupid article referenced in the early morning swim which says Kaskari is still managing the TARP.
http://www.iht.com/articles/20…..easury.php
Well, that makes me feel so much better.
It is my opinion that with regards to new regulations they will be global. I am hoping and anticipating that something will emerge from the upcoming G-20 meetings.
Bankster havens like Switzerland and the Caymans need to be eliminated. They are the modern day version of the Hole in the wall>
The CDS game was for big players. Was it $10 million a pop to play? Even with the MSM Pundit Bucket Brigade carrying all that right wing water 24-7, the disclosure of the con and its principals can not be choreographed in a way that will garner public sympathy (understatement). Not even Karl Rove has that kind of magic. Joe Sixpack just isn’t quite stupid enough to be cajoled into defending billionaires with Hannity/Limbaugh talking points. YET.
Everybody (we’re all hurting) really hates these rich bastards now. They are stealing our money with as much secrecy as possible. The alternative for them is that they take the losses in the CDS ponzi scheme they created. Obama with Geithner and company is helping them to pull off this secret con game. Wherein they take their chips (our money) and wait for the next big poker game.
Agreed we need to ask Jan’s speakers about this hopefully Obama is on it besides if the GOP wants to go Galt let the leave without their stolen cash.
learning via yves smith about giethner’s role in the asian financial crisis was just too much.
fire kashkari too.
A big global announcement would be good, universal bank standards for accounting and reporting financial results would be better, getting rid of CDS’s heck the market should rise!
Kucinich teasing out details.
I’m fleeing Bank of America now. I’ve had an account with them since I first swore my officer’s oath after college back in ‘85. I am cutting and running. My money is coming out and going into a credit union.
I encourage anyone and everyone with accounts at Citi, JPMorgan, or Bank of America (and Wells Fargo?) to cut and run. Cut and run your deposits into the nearest credit union. We need to bring these crooks down one way or another and a nice run on these banks is one way to do it when Congress and the Administration refuse to do what is required. No transparency, no money.
Hell, I’m tempted to skate on my federal taxes this year too so I can ensure that no more of MY money goes into CDS gambler or Bank CEO pockets.
Imagine if every group 20 country gave up war for a few years and put 20% of their military budget into fixing their economy?
Now that would raise the DOW!
And this from Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03…..=1&em
I think this is highly indicative of just how prejudiced Obama towards us. That we are right on this doesn’t matter. What turns him off is that this message is coming from us. This says it all for me and why there is so little hope that needed change will occur.
I should say that Krugman notes that others, even some belonging to the Establishment, back these “blog” positions, but that is not the point. It is the value of the idea and not where it comes from that should be important. For Obama this is clearly not the case.
i agree with the need for some (actually lots of) global coordination – but imo it is important to remember that we don’t have the democratic institutions to see that it’s not run for the benefit of the few have-a-lots (see the imf).
it may be comfortable to wish for good will and intelligence in our leaders (here in the usa and in other countries) – but the fact is they show no signs of that. which means there is just no substitute for citizen engagement.
from ecahn’s link at 81
Bank of America understand the responsibilities that come with access to public funds,” said Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, in February comments to the House Financial Services Committee. “Taxpayers want to see how we are using this money to restart the economy and-want us to manage our expenses carefully. These expectations are appropriate.”
According to the memo, “The transactions are not illegal: EESA was mostly silent on prohibited transactions, and the funds provided through CPP were made without conditions. Treasury implementing regulations and tenn agreements with CPP recipients were similarly silent. However, members of Congress might not consider them the kind of transactions they believed TARP would subsidize when they enacted EESA.”
Something to think about. Still the dow is dropping stock used as collateral for loans the banks made are dropping A boycott might not be needed to bring down the banks.
campaign might not do anything soon enough the major banks can fail that quick, one bank/domino can bring down everyone now.
Yes, I didn’t think my opinion of Geithner could get lower but that article about the Asian crisis infuriated me. Not only was Geithner bad news but he was know to be bad news from 10 years ago.
It goes to show the power of the blogosphere though. Geithner was praised at his hearings for his part in addressing the Asian crisis. But it is the blogosphere that is playing up the fact that Geithner was not one of the heroes in that but a major villain.
WE have been right on this issue ever since Bush and Greenspan lowered interest rates! I hope Obama is just ussing us to scare the GOPers we are playing the Bad Cop to Obama’s good Cop.
Ignoring us could ruin the country now.
good for kucinich. it was bankers who put cleveland in default (because kucinich wouldn’t sell the municipal electric co – to a company with overlapping board of directors with the banks that held the city’s bonds). it took 10 years before it was clear that kucinich had done the right thing for the city – although it meant he had to spend that time in the political wilderness (including difficulty getting any work, etc).
heh. i liked yves‘ (and your) take on obama’s comment better than krugman’s. here’s yves:
We should be happy that the banks didn’t do anything illegal with the TARP money. The first thing I thought was that BOA would waste the money on Hookers and Blow.
You knew it had to happen. The military industrial complex is using high unemployment to argue for continuing to fund its super expensive, gold-plated weapons programs. Don’t want to add to those bad job numbers, nope, nope.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03…..fense.html
Countries that try to benefit the few now will likely fail including us. Bank bailouts for the rich bad getting everyone in the G 20 group to cut military spending build roads etc good.
You are right we can’t make them obey even here it seems but if they don’t there will be consequences.
The dow has to rise or the banks will be forced to call in loans when no idea we need transparency since nobody knows everyone refuses to invest.
Because if the banks have to ask the hedgefunds and big corporations for more stock as collateral the dominos start falling.
Some banks will not be able to get the cash they need. Many companies will be owned by the banks. At $30 to $1 loans for every dollar of collateral the hedge funds disappear.
Then the Credit DEFAULT swaps kick in and AIG the insurance companies, the banks and the government do not have that kind of cash.
But who ones the CDS hedgefunds banks etc trying to protect themselves from losses mostly. We need to get rid of CDS.
I point out the obvious when I say that the Republican plan for the great unwashed youth is two-pronged:
A.) Join the Military
or
B.) Go to Prison
Either way, Republicans benefit.
kinda long for a petition, but oh well…..
1) When I go to the bank to obtain a car loan, I have to use that money for a car. I am not allowed to use it for a vacation and have no ‘wiggle room’ to use it for anything other than a car.
2) No responsible/sane person would give one of their own credit cards to someone and not look at their statement to see what was purchased. And if it wasn’t used to purchase what was agreed, they would yank it back and make them pay back the money.
How on earth can you blindly hand out our money and not say where it has gone?
You might as well just wing it out of a car window going 90mph down the highway. That would have a better chance of helping someone/our economy than the plan you are implementing now. At least then you could actually say where the money is–scattered along I-90–and people could show up and collect it like aluminum cans and actually use it. Instead of ‘undisclosed amounts’ and ‘undisclosed usage’ and ‘undisclosed locations’ and ‘undisclosed deals’ delivering it to usurers who have no intentions of helping anyone.
You in Congress are our only safeguard, our only protection, our only vanguard, and as far as we can tell, as far as we are allowed to know due to lack of information from you, you are giving money to the bookies of the financial industry expecting them to be charitable when we lose the bet.
Wake up and tell us what is really going on, and do something about it.
D
Charlie Wilson constituent
“Little guys that do this go to jail for decades…why should these executives be any different?”
that’s because about 30% of the “little guys” drink the rethug kool-aid. the remaining 68 or so per cent are trying to hard just to keep a roof over their heads, that they have no time or inclination to go through the reams of jargon they foist upon us in the name of policy. plus, we don’t have the money to form and pay lobbies.
we have three, four, possibly five legal systems in this country.
one for the madoffs.
one for the average person.
one for the average person who’s colored or an immigrant.
one for an average person who’s colored/immigrant and female or gay.
one for the average person who’s not affiliated to religion.
Now now do not be to quick to judge for until we do know what the banks have done with the cash how do we know for sure that BOA execs did not party with Rush in the Dominican Republic with Viagra?
Still a good idea to bail out of the big bastard banks regardless. FDIC is straining under the load of failing banks as it is. When these guys start going, there is NO certainty that depositors will see their money recouped via FDIC.
That is the other reason I’m bailing and going to a local credit union instead.
When they say, after a bailout cash flows in, that they will continue to operate their banks “for the shareholders”, that is ALL you need to know.
Cut the money, claw back as much as possible. Nationalize or let them sink into their own shit.
Great military jobs give what as return investment to society?
Green power means cheaper electricity for business lower costs to people, electric cars men no need for expensive oil wars the army has already lost, no pollution means lower healthcare expenses.
More army spending leads to more wars, higher oil prices and a bad economy.
I agree with what you’ve said/sent. With regards to the length, I’m not convinced that they are going to read most of the comments anyway. So, you might as well say what is on your mind.
And, that’s a great image. I’m imaging D driving down the highway and tossing buckets of dough out, one bill at a time. Indeed, more regular people might benefit from that.
(and a big Hi to you dmac)
If the FDIC fails then Obama has to find a new home.
AFAIC, a little sex, drugs and rock n roll are great ice breakers and not illegal in some cases.
We can be certain that’s what the nice man from BOA Constrictors was talking about.
OTOH, Limbaugh. You’d have to pay anyone to babysit that creep. When he was a kid they had to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him.
the sense i’m getting is that the bond market is much, much more important in all this than the stock market. but what do i know?
The American people just have to trust the banksters and their representatives in Congress and the Administration. What Americans need to be outraged about is how the unions are destroying the auto industry.
Stock prices around a buck? Its already happened bailouts are not working Nationalization might not even work if CDS are also protected and the market goes down more which is very likely.
The banks are Dead they just don’t know it yet they are not even Zombie banks anymore.
if you missed it, everyone should watch this daily show clip with joe nocera from the nyt from 3/4/09–explains it all.
five stars.
http://www.indecisionforever.c…..oId=220254
and the spot about cnbc financial reporters
cnbc gives financial advice
http://www.indecisionforever.c…..oId=220252
Hey I could be wrong too.
Anything can explode now bonds, stocks credit card defaults, unemployment numbers they are all matches…tied to dynamite which match will go off first well I don’t know either.
Until we get some real numbers from the banks nobody knows.
Interesting surname that witness, Fed Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn has… see perris’ Oxdown diary about the entire billionaire, bankster Kohn clan.
One of them is GWB’s sister, Doro (Bush) Kohn.
Maybe one (the ?) reason for the secrecy is to conceal that the ‘industries’ of the Kohn and Bush families were among the recipients of the TARP via AIG and the bailed-out banks???
hey demi
i actually did that once along a stretch of road where people were regularly gathering cans.and was wishing those people were there that day to give it to them.
it hit me after someone i didn’t like at all gave me money to ‘chip in’ for something after being a true ass about it…i didn’t want their tainted funds. they shoved it at me when i was pulling out and it was on the seat.
stupid, i know, money was blowing around on the seat and was grabbing it to put it awaay goin’ around a curve. did it before i even thought about it. hoped they got it.
now i can say—throw money out the window? i did that once.
funny.
selise, isn’t the maneuver that Kucinich dodged by his refusal about the same plans followed by the economic hit men employed secretly by Treasury through Big Banks to wreck the economy of entire S. American, African and small Eastern countries?
Ref: book, Confessions of An Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. He is also on YouTube and interviews on democracynow.
Thanks Jane.
Petition signed, threw $10 bucks in.
The situation is bad and it doesn’t look like Obama and his team “gets it”. I don’t know how long it will take POTUS to realize (1) you can’t tango (be bipartisam) with someone who doesn’t want to dance and (2) bailing out banks and hedge funds isn’t the way to go. That the fed won’t divulge counterparties or who gets what adds insult to injury.
How long will it take us to realize that faxing, petitioning, and commenting won’t cut it? How about if we’re not on a different path in six months, we start talking alternatives.
Hey Congress: How is giving Geithner trillions for secret give-aways to his bankster pals different from laundering any other stolen funds?
Or is the only difference that you get a cut of the laundered funds from your bankster
ownersdonors?I wrote this to my Congressman:
I am on TANF with my grandniece. In order to merit the $440.00 per month, which is the only income this little girl and I have to live on, I have to provide all kinds of proof to the government. I often have to verify the verifications and re-verify the re-verifications.
Recently I was investigated for Welfare Fraud because my ex-brother-in-law was visiting from another state on his way to see his son in another city. I was napping with my grand-niece at the time and he made the mistake of answering my door to a welfare fraud investigator. This investigator is a man who is part of a team to whom the government pays lots of money in order to find and prosecute “welfare queens” like me. I spent the little money we had trying to defend myself and had to use the rest of it for food because our food access suspended, which will put us back for months because I could not pay the other necessities we need. God forbid that I am not a billionaire and took in a newborn infant whose mother is homeless, schizophrenic, and HIV positive while I am disabled, 57 years old, and in poverty myself! While I am glad to care for this beautiful child and she is my family, everyone should be well aware that it is far less expense to let me take care of her instead of the government paying thousands of dollars more into a foster system. Welfare fraud is a crime that could have landed me in jail and then there would have been nobody to care for my 3 year old grand-niece. I am *not* making this up!
I have to undergo such scrutiny for a mere $440.00 a month. If I cannot defend myself and then face the possibility of having all our income taken away forever, a little girl losing the only mother she has ever known, and possible prison, WHY shouldn’t any of these entitled multi-millionaires, who have all kinds of attorneys and book keepers, do the same for literally millions of times more?
Just askin’ …
Cat Sullivan