No F&F? No ACORN? Were the Repugs lying?

[boutons_]

From the guy who wrote Liar's Poker that Gutfreund claims ruined Gutfreunds's career, a very long, complex article about how the financial sector dumped the US and world economy into a deep and long hell, while earning 10s of $Bs doing it.

Paulsen was/is one of the most innovative, aggressive robbers, then and now, with the rules of the bailout plan being violated every day, with almost none of the 100s of $Bs being used to free up credit markets, but rather to prop up balance sheets, pay off investors, and pay out 10s of $Bs in bonuses as shareholder value was destroyed.


http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true#page2

All you cheerleaders for free, unregulated markets that are self-policing and self-correcting give a big old fucking

RAH RAH RAH

Go Capitalists Go

Fight Lie Steal Cheat! :lol

ACORN's fault? :lol

Freddie & Fannie's fault? :lol

[byrontx]

Thanks for the post, it is a great read. People saw this coming but greed won out.

[BacktoBasics]

Multi trillion dollar crime scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUKU939zipw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md6F6iE1YqQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHSwqXf3Og0

surely none of you are suprised.

[johnsmith]

From the guy who wrote Liar's Poker that Gutfreund claims ruined Gutfreunds's career, a very long, complex article about how the financial sector dumped the US and world economy into a deep and long hell, while earning 10s of $Bs doing it.

Paulsen was/is one of the most innovative, aggressive robbers, then and now, with the rules of the bailout plan being violated every day, with almost none of the 100s of $Bs being used to free up credit markets, but rather to prop up balance sheets, pay off investors, and pay out 10s of $Bs in bonuses as shareholder value was destroyed.


http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true#page2

All you cheerleaders for free, unregulated markets that are self-policing and self-correcting give a big old fucking

RAH RAH RAH

Go Capitalists Go

Fight Lie Steal Cheat! :lol

ACORN's fault? :lol

Freddie & Fannie's fault? :lol

My favorite part of this thread is how you laugh and celebrate. Hooray!!

[AZLouis]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24012700/the_new_trough


...Five days before Paulson struck his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated a similar bailout — only he extracted meaningful guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.

In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives — all before taxpayers are paid back.

No wonder it took just one hour for Paulson to convince all nine CEOs to accept his offer — less than seven minutes per bank. Not even the firms' own lawyers could have drafted a sweeter deal.

The day after it met with the nation's top banks, Treasury announced that it had selected the firm that would receive the juiciest contract of all: that of "master custodian." The winning company will be to the bailout what Halliburton is to the military: the contractor of contractors. It will purchase toxic debts from Wall Street, service them and auction them off in the future — a so-called "end-to-end process." The contract is for a minimum of three years.

Seventy firms applied for the gig; the winner was Bank of New York Mellon. Describing the scope of the megacontract, bank president Gerald Hassell said, "It's the ultimate outsourcing — because the Federal Reserve and the Treasury do not have the mechanics to run the entire program, and we're essentially the general contractor across the entire program. It's going to cross our entire company."

This raises an interesting point: Has the Treasury partially nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the other way around? Is it Treasury that has been partially privatized by Wall Street, its massive rescue plan now entirely in the hands of a private bank it is directly subsidizing?

Shortly after receiving the contract, Hassell told investors that his institution is now well-positioned to profit from the market meltdown. "There's a lot of new business that's going on even in this chaotic marketplace," he said, "and so some of those things have been very positive to us." Just how positive, we don't know, because Treasury has blacked out the 10 lines of the "master custodian" contract that reveal how much Bank of New York Mellon will be paid. Though Treasury says it will release the information eventually, the secrecy goes beyond anything the Bush administration attempted in Iraq. Even Halliburton's dodgy contracts came with price tags attached...

...Bank of New York Mellon has a bad record for mischief. It is embroiled in a $22.5 billion money-laundering lawsuit in Moscow and has been forced to pay out a $14 million settlement in a related case. Though the bank's "master custodian" contract with Treasury prohibits unethical conduct, the arrangement seems rife with opportunities for abuse. According to its most recent earnings report, Bank of New York Mellon holds $1.2 billion in subprime mortgage securities. That means that in addition to the $3 billion it will receive as part of the equity program, it will also be eligible to apply for taxpayer money from the program it is being paid to administer. Neither the bank nor Treasury would comment on this direct conflict of interest...

...On the same day that he allocated the first $125 billion to the banks, Secretary Paulson announced the largest federal budget deficit in U.S. history. Buried in his statement was a preview of the next phase of the financial disaster. The deficit numbers, he declared, reinforce the need to "pursue policies that promote economic growth and fiscal responsibility, and address entitlement reform." He was referring to Americans who feel entitled to receive Social Security in their old age and Medicaid when they are sick. Those programs, Paulson implied, might not be able to survive the budget crisis he is currently creating for the next administration...

And who did Paulson and the Treasury initially place as chief investment officer of this "bailout"? Reuben Jeffery III. Look up this guy and cringe. For starters he was chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated "flexibility" in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.