Geithner’s Crimes Through AIG – Will The Truth Come Out
by ilene - February 24th, 2011 11:29 pm
Courtesy of The Daily Bail
Geithner’s Crimes Through AIG – Will The Truth Come Out
Video – Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert
At issue is Tim Geithner’s criminal behavior in orchestrating the AIG bailout to favor Goldman Sachs through counterparty payouts at par, and then the massive cover-up.
Further reading…
- Who Is Dan Jester And Why Did Tim Geithner Call Him 103 Times During The Financial Meltdown Of 2008?
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The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
by ilene - January 8th, 2011 4:45 pm
Robert Reich defends public workers and redirects charges of unfairness to the top 1% holders of wealth. Charles Hugh Smith discusses the heart of the problem in U.S.O.F.C.: If the Fraud Stops, the Financial System Collapses. The financial system is where the most dramatic inequities lie. – Ilene
Courtesy of Robert Reich
In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.
But now the right is going after public employees.
Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don’t want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they’d like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.
It’s far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public’s work – sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees – to call them “faceless bureaucrats” and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets. The story fits better with the Republican’s Big Lie that our problems are due to a government that’s too big.
Above all, Republicans don’t want to have to justify continued tax cuts for the rich. As quietly as possible, they want to make them permanent.
But the right’s argument is shot-through with bad data, twisted evidence, and unsupported assertions.
They say public employees earn far more than private-sector workers. That’s untrue when you take account of level of education. Matched by education, public sector workers actually earn less than their private-sector counterparts.
The Republican trick is to compare apples with oranges — the average wage of public employees with the average wage of all private-sector employees. But only 23 percent of private-sector employees have college…
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Schemes of the Rich and Greedy
by ilene - November 28th, 2010 6:07 am
Courtesy of Michael Hudson
Tax-Avoidance – The Worst is Yet to Come
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”
“The Rich Boy,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The 30-year campaign of the wealthy to rig our economic system – especially the tax component – for their own benefit will accelerate with the GOP capture of the House of Representatives and the likely capture of the presidency and Senate in two years. For a foreshadowing of what is to come, a dress rehearsal has been conducted in Latvia, Iceland, Ireland and other financially strapped countries. Latvia has been burdened with the world’s most regressive tax system, while Iceland and Ireland have become record setters in tapping taxpayers to bail out financial crime syndicates, a.k.a. banks.
The Irish bailout will encumber its people with perhaps as much debt as a $9 trillion bailout would be here in the United States. The Irish also are expected to also gut unemployment insurance, their minimum wage and similar social safety nets while boosting interest rates and home property taxes to pay tribute to the European creditor agencies that have “rescued” them. They will relinquish ownership of much of Ireland to their creditors, capped by ownership of government policy-making. The new banks will be owned by foreigners, who will put Ireland on a debt treadmill to transfer its taxable surplus to mainland Europe and Britain.
Just as the U.S. taxpayer saved Goldman Sachs and the other high rollers from taking a loss, the Irish are being forced to “socialize” (that is, oligarchize) the losses of the banks. Think of how the Federal Reserve gave the banks 100 cents on the dollar for the some $2 trillion of toxic assets they took off the books of the banks and you get a sense of how the Irish bailout money will be used. It will keep the banks and creditors whole.
Bad banking is going unpunished. Shareholders, bondholders, large depositors and bank executives are not facing constraints on moral hazard. The European Central Bank (ECB) has cleaned up their mess, enabling and their wealth to grow on its trajectory as before – at the price of impoverishing the non-financial parts of society. Every effort will be made to re-inflate the property bubble putting off the day of reckoning. Taxes – like accountability – are for what Leona Helmsley referred…
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Could The Financial Crisis Erupting In Ireland, Portugal, Greece And Spain Lead To The End Of The Euro And The Break Up Of The European Union?
by ilene - November 18th, 2010 1:39 am
Could The Financial Crisis Erupting In Ireland, Portugal, Greece And Spain Lead To The End Of The Euro And The Break Up Of The European Union?
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
The Irish banking system is melting down right in front of our eyes. Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain are all drowning in debt. It is becoming extremely expensive for all of those nations to issue new debt. Officials all over Europe are begging Ireland to accept a bailout. Portugal has already indicated that they will probably be next in line. Most economists are now acknowledging that without a new round of bailouts the dominoes could start to fall and we could see a wave of debt defaults by European governments. All of this is pushing the monetary union in Europe to its limits. In fact, some of Europe’s top politicians are now publicly warning that this crisis may not only mean the end of the euro, but also the end of the European Union itself.
Yes, things really are that serious in Europe right now. In order for the euro and the European Union to hold together, two things have got to happen. Number one, Germany and the other European nations that are in good financial condition have got to agree to keep bailing out nations such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece that are complete economic basket cases. Number two, the European nations receiving these bailouts have got to convince their citizens to comply with the very harsh austerity measures being imposed upon them by the EU and the IMF.
Those two things should not be taken for granted. In Germany, many taxpayers are already sick and tired of pouring hundreds of billions of euros into a black hole. The truth is that the Germans are not going to accept carrying weak sisters like Greece and Portugal on their backs indefinitely.
In addition, we have already seen the kinds of riots that have erupted in Greece over the austerity measures being implemented there. If there is an overwhelming backlash against austerity in some parts of Europe will some nations actually attempt to leave the EU?
Right now the focus is on Ireland. The Irish banking system is a basket case at the moment and the Irish government is drowning in red ink. European Union officials are urging Ireland to request a bailout, but so far…
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The Calm Before The Storm
by ilene - November 3rd, 2010 12:51 pm
Note: Michael wrote this prior to the elections. – Ilene
The Calm Before The Storm
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
An eerie calm has descended upon world financial markets as they await perhaps the two most important financial events of the year this week. On Tuesday, investors will be eagerly awaiting the results of one of the most anticipated midterm elections in U.S. history. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to end months of speculation by formally announcing the details of a new round of quantitative easing. If either the election or the meeting of the Federal Reserve open market committee delivers a highly unexpected result, it could have a dramatic impact on world financial markets. In fact, many are looking at this week as a potential turning point for the U.S. economy. The decisions that are made or not made this week could set us down a road from which the U.S. economy may never recover.
At this point, it looks like the Republicans will take control of the U.S. House of Representatives and will pick up a number of U.S. Senate seats as well.
There are many in the financial world who already consider Barack Obama to be the most "anti-business" president in U.S. history, so a defeat for the Democrats on Tuesday would be greatly welcomed by many on Wall Street. Barack Obama’s decline in popularity since he was elected has been absolutely stunning. According to Gallup, Barack Obama had an average approval rating of just 44.7% during the seventh quarter of his presidency, which was a brand new low. In fact, Obama’s average approval rating has fallen during every single quarter since he took office. Things have gotten so bad for Obama that one new poll has found that 47% of Democrats now think that Barack Obama should be challenged for the 2012 Democratic presidential nomination.
However, if the Democrats were able to do surprisingly well on Tuesday, it would not only shock the political pundits, but it would also likely put world financial markets in a very bad mood.
If the Republicans do very well on Tuesday, it will likely mean that there will be no more extensions for those receiving long-term unemployment…
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Obamacare Career Ending Votes; Republican Chance to Win Senate; Expect House Blowout; Stimulus Appetite Greatly Diminished
by ilene - October 22nd, 2010 1:20 am
Obamacare Career Ending Votes; Republican Chance to Win Senate; Expect House Blowout; Stimulus Appetite Greatly Diminished
Courtesy of Mish
The public is still angered over Obamacare so much so that Dems Find Careers Threatened by Obamacare Votes
Seven months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent a busy week rounding up votes to pass the Senate version of the Democrats’ health care legislation.
It wasn’t easy. She had to get Democrats who had voted no in November to switch to yes in March. And she had to get Democrats who had refused to vote for the bill in November without an anti-abortion amendment to vote for a bill in March that lacked that language.
What about the districts of the House Democrats who cast the key votes that made Obamacare law? So how are they doing?
Take Betsy Markey of Colorado 4, who in 2008 beat a Republican who seemed fixated on the same-sex marriage issue. Markey cast a late-in-the-roll-call no in November, then publicly switched to yes in the week before the March 21 roll call. She’s currently trailing Republican Cory Gardiner by an average of 44 to 39 percent in three polls.
Consider John Boccieri of Ohio 16, who switched from no to yes in a TV press conference in which he said the bill would do great things for his constituents. Boccieri’s district was represented by Republicans for 58 years until he was elected in 2008. It looks like it will be again next year. In three polls, Republican Jim Renacci leads Boccieri by an average of 46 percent to 36 percent.
Then there is Suzanne Kosmas, a longtime real estate agent who beat a Republican with an ethics issue in 2008. She announced her switch from no to yes late in the week before the roll call. She’s now running behind Republican Sandy Adams by an average of 47 percent to 40 percent in three recent polls.
To put these numbers in perspective, it’s highly unusual for an incumbent House member to trail a challenger in any poll or to run significantly below 50 percent. But these three Democrats are running 5 to 10 points behind Republican challengers, and none tops 40 percent.
The article notes that Bart Stupak of Michigan 1 opposed the original bill over an abortion clause along with 5 others known as the "Stupak Five".
Bart switched his vote when…
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The Loss of Trust and the Great Unraveling To Come
by ilene - October 19th, 2010 11:04 pm
The Loss of Trust and the Great Unraveling To Come
Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
The political class and Standard-Issue Punditry (SIP) don’t "get it": Americans have completely lost faith in their Financial Elites and government, for abundantly obvious reasons.
Anyone who believes the foreclosure crisis can be contained is deluded, because the real issue in play is the citizens’ trust in their government’s ability to govern the nation’s Financial Elites according to the rule of law. Clearly, our government has failed its citizens--utterly, completely, totally, at every level of governance (Federal, State, local) and at every level of oversight and regulation.
The bitter truth is that the nation’s Financial Power Elites are not constrained by rule of law, and as a result of this revelation Americans’ trust in their government and political class has been shattered.
Despite raising their voices 600 to 1 against the TARP and related bailouts of the nation’s Financial Power Elites (who stripmined the nation’s wealth from their investment banking and mortgage banking fortresses) in 2008, the government shoved trillions of dollars of bailouts and guarantees into private hands with pathetically little control in return.
In their rage at this abject, cowardly surrender of their government to the Financial Elites, the American people tossed the craven bankers-lapdogs Republicans out and replaced them with an untested young president who talked the talk and old-line Democrats.
All of whom proceeded to attach the same leash to their necks and become craven lapdogs of the Financial Elites. Less than two years after the inevitable meltdown of the Power Elites’ stripmining operation and its unprecedented rescue by the Federal government, the Financial Power Elites are once again caught flouting the laws of land as if the U.S. were a "banana republic" in which laws are "only for the little people."
And now the inevitable calls are arising for a "Federal solution" which will bail the bankers out of the foreclosure crisis with their ownership of the political class and the nation’s wealth firmly in hand.
The people have lost their trust in their government for good reason: it has betrayed their trust. The emotions being raised are beyond the understanding of the cowards and brown-nosers pulling the levers of governance: why are people so angry about some botched paperwork?
The emotions will be familiar…
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QE2 Won’t Save Our Sinking Ship
by ilene - October 18th, 2010 4:03 pm
Randall’s portrayal of Ben Bernanke’s thinking reminds me of a professor I knew who was trying to prove his own version of the Krebs Cycle. He designed experiments that would theoretically prove he was correct, but – strangely – the students in his lab kept failing to achieve the proper results. Rather than changing his theory, he realized that something must have gone wrong in the experiment, and he would have the students do it over, and over, until the right results were obtained. A lot of rats were killed in the process, but no matter--no one really cared about the rats. – Ilene
QE2 Won’t Save Our Sinking Ship
By L. Randall Wray, courtesy of New Deal 2.0
The Fed is between a rock and a hard economic outlook.
Fed Chairman Bernanke is signaling that a second round of quantitative easing will soon begin. In the first round, the Fed’s balance sheet nearly tripled to nearly $2.3 trillion as it bought $1.7 trillion in Treasury securities and mortgage-related securities. Since the Fed appears to want to unwind its position in mortgages, QE2 will probably target federal government debt.
During Japan’s long stagnation, Bernanke was famous for arguing that the Bank of Japan could have done far more to fight deflation. Since the BOJ’s overnight interest rate target was effectively at zero, the conventional policy of lowering its interest rate target was not an option. Hence, Bernanke advocated quantitative, rather than price, activity — the BOJ would purchase assets from banks, driving up their excess reserves, until they would finally make loans to stimulate spending that would reverse the trend of prices.
So when he had the opportunity, he put theory into practice in the US, driving short-term interest rates effectively to zero and filling bank balance sheets with excess reserves by purchasing their assets. So far, the impact has not been significantly different than Japan’s experience. Indeed, Bernanke has been publicly warning of the dangers of a Japanese-style deflation, as US inflation has dropped nearly to zero, well below the Fed’s informal target of two percent.
And so we are now set for round two of QE — more of the same old, same old.
In truth, the Fed has done only two helpful things. First, during the liquidity crisis of 2007 and 2008, it lent reserves to financial institutions that faced a liquidity crisis.…
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The Politics of Resentment
by ilene - September 22nd, 2010 8:56 pm
The Politics of Resentment
Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Resentment, frustration and anger are now ubiquitous features of U.S. culture. This is the consequence of several factors, none of them positive.
"Horn broken, watch for finger." This bumper sticker perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the nation: the horn is broken, and everyone is giving everyone else the finger.
Why are simmering resentment, frustration and anger now ubiquitous features of U.S. culture? I would posit the following factors:
1. A culture of entitlement: the U.S. is now a culture of takers obsessed with getting their "fair share" of the swag/borrowed money. "We were promised!" (public employees); "I earned it!" (Social Security recipient, though only the first 3-4 years of benefits are drawn from his/her contributions, and everything after that is welfare drawn from the hides of current workers); "healthcare/income security/housing is a right!" (everybody’s got rights, but nobody seems to have any duties or obligations); "it’s for the children/elderly!" (that is, my expense account, million-dollar pension, etc. are nominally protected by the banner of "education" and/or "healthcare"), and so on.
Those with access to "private welfare" such as CEOs are a privileged class; most of us have to elbow our way to the crowded public trough. The truly select feed at the Wall Street trough, which combines private welfare skimmed from shareholders and investors, and Central State welfare issued in unlimited billions via bailouts, Fed purchases of toxic debt, backstops, loan guarantees, etc.
But like the story about the attractive young lady who blushingly agrees to share her favors for $10,000, but balks when the suitor downgrades his offer to a paltry $100 (with the punchline being, "We’ve already established what you’re willing to sell, now we’re just haggling over the price"), the recipient has sacrificed autonomy in accepting the entitlement, regardless of the source or size. This is how complicity to a host of embezzlements, corruptions and exploitations is purchased.
2. A culture of victimhood: Victimhood is rewarded, shouldering ones’ own load and thrift are punished. Like rats in a maze, Americans respond to incentives and disincentives: as a result, everyone is shouting out their claim to victimhood. The cacaphony is reminiscent of a classroom of spoiled children all claiming excuses for their odious behavior and poor performance.
3. Unrealistic expectations: nobody wants to do demanding physical labor, so skilled-craft jobs go begging and companies have to train workers.…
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WHAT DID WE EXPECT WITH LEADERS LIKE THIS?
by ilene - September 22nd, 2010 3:51 pm
Brief review of why it’s about time Summers says goodbye. – Ilene
WHAT DID WE EXPECT WITH LEADERS LIKE THIS?
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
It’s no secret that the economic recovery in the United States has been meager at best (and that’s assuming you believe this is not just one ongoing recession). While there is plenty of blame to go around for our current plight the buck ultimately stops with the most influential people in this
I’ve been highly critical of Obama’s economic team over the years because many of them were key players in helping cause the financial crisis. Tim Geithner was the head of the NY Fed when the banks were busy turning themselves into casinos. Ben Bernanke (who Obama should have never reconfirmed) failed to even acknowledge the potential existence of problems in the U.S. economy leading up to the financial crisis and then implemented his great monetarist gaffe which has now been proven to be what I called it from the very beginning – a bailout of Wall Street and a slap in the face for Main Street. He receives endless praise for helping to avoid a supposed second Great Depression. This is like the man who sees a fire in his front yard, ignores it, then when it’s finally becoming a widespread danger decides to save his own house from burning (the banks), lets all of the surroundings houses burn to the ground (Main Street) and then receives endless praise for his courage under fire.
But there have been few people in power over the last 25 years that have been more misguided and downright destructive than Larry Summers. This is a man who believes that women are intellectually inferior (I’ll tell you one thing – this economy wouldn’t be such a mess if it wasn’t run primarily by arrogant, narcissistic males) and has done more to help
…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.