This has been going on a LONG time!

October 21, 2008 in Arrogance, Banking Crisis, Ben Bernanke, Congress, Corruption, Cover-ups, Economics, Fannie Mae, Financial Markets Bail-out, Freddie Mac, George W. Bush, House Financial Services Committee, Lehman Brothers, Money-Money-Money, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

On August 17, 2007 – we posted the article below. In light of the events of the past few weeks, please take a few minutes and re-read this amazing piece of information.

Countrywide Financial

“Still Million Dollar a Month Salaries…” Plus the Threat of Martial Law

October 3, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Corruption, Cronie-ism, Financial Markets Bail-out, George W. Bush, House Financial Services Committee, Martial Law, Money-Money-Money, Politics, Power, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, Threat to America, Too Much Power, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Still Million Dollar a Month Salaries…
Still Tens of Billions to the Bank of China…
Be Skeptical of Senate Bailout Bill
All the Old Problems Remain
A Single Comprehensive Updated Article by Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA)
October 1, 2008

• Taxpayers highly unlikely to recoup any of the costs under revenue provision
added last Sunday (page 2)
• Treasury will not use the new insurance powers added to the Bill last Sunday
(page 3)
• Tens of billions will go to foreign investors (page 3)
• Million-Dollar a month salaries will continue (page 4)
• Oversight Board can critique, not halt, any action (page 4)
• Few if any homeowners will get mortgage relief (page 4)
• All $700 billion can be spent by January 20, 2009 (page 5)
• Taxpayers will get little or no equity upside (page 6)
• Meaningful regulatory reform proposals will be subject to filibuster, delay, and
dilution (page 6)
• We have time to write a good bill (page 6)

Read Rep. Sherman’s full article here. (It’s a PDF so you can download and save it if you like. We did.)

Also – here’s Rep. Sherman discussing the fear tactics used to push this bill through –

Bail-out Bill Coming Through the Senate is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

October 1, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Corruption, Money, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, The Constitution, The Senate, This Administration

Please share this!

Our Constitution States: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”

As a result, the Senate does not have the power to initiate bills imposing taxes. Furthermore, the House of Representatives holds that the Senate does not have the power to originate appropriation bills, or bills authorizing the expenditure of federal funds.

Want to Know What They are Doing Behind Your Back?

October 1, 2008 in Arrogance, Banking Crisis, Ben Bernanke, Corruption, Cover-ups, Cronie-ism, Financial Markets Bail-out, Money-Money-Money, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Unbelievable

This is scandalous! They are assuming you are too tired and beaten down to care. A lot of these people are up for re-election – continue to let them know what you think!

This is a conference call place BY THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT – it’s too long to post here in its entirety – so read and listen at NakedCapitalism.com.

Mussolini-Style Corporatism in Action: Treasury Conference Call on Bailout Bill to Analysts (Updated)

“They Just Don’t Get It”­

October 1, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Banks, Barack Obama, Barney Frank - Chairman, Chris Dodd, Congress, Economics, Financial Markets Bail-out, George W. Bush, John McCain, Money, Nancy Pelosi, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, The Constitution, This Administration, Too Much Power, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Political Leaders and Pundits Are Clueless About Bailout Rejection

By Richard C. Cook

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008­ Stephen Pearlstein is the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist. In print and as a TV talking head­ – like on Chris Matthews’ Hardball late last week­ – Pearlstein is one of the foremost media cheerleaders for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.

Or should we call it the Bush-Paulson-McCain-Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Dodd-Frank Wall Street bailout bill?

Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the leadership of the Democratic majority in Congress have become the indispensable partners in Bush administration travesties. First it was funding for the Iraq War. Now it’s lavishing rewards on the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe,” who, coincidentally, have been the financial mainstay of the Democratic Party since the Clinton years.

The TV networks are filled this morning with commentators who are sneering about how a majority of congresspeople voted to save their political butts in the face of the upcoming congressional elections. Political expediency, say the financier-owned media, trumped principle, when the House defeated the bailout bill yesterday by a vote in which 67 percent of the Republicans and 60 percent of the Democrats voted “No.”

The “principle” in this case is that of the loaded gun which Wall Street is holding to Main Street’s head. “Bail us out or no more loans,” Wall Street says in this alleyway mugging. And no more loans seemingly would be a disaster, because for the last quarter century it’s primarily been borrowed money Main Street has been living on.

But maybe Main Street is willing to call Wall Street’s bluff­on principle.

Here’s where Pearlstein enters the picture. His column in the Post this morning is as condescending as it can be. The title? “They Just Don’t Get It.”

Pearlstein writes: “Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system.”

Here’s what Pearlstein doesn’t get: The only reason there has been economic growth in the last seven years has been due to the housing bubble the Bush administration and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan created to get us out of the crash of the dot.com bubble in 2000-2001.

The reason these bubbles have been needed is that the United States over the last generation gave away millions of its good manufacturing jobs to foreign nations in order to further the greed of global finance capitalism. So the only way people have been able to live has been through credit bubbles that have the added disadvantage of inflating the prices of assets, including their homes. This is another benefit of the housing bubble: For a home that once cost $120,000, a family is paying a $300,000 mortgage. If they want to sell, they would be lucky to get $200,000, less brokers’ and bankers’ fees.

Pearlstein again: “Politicians worry less about preventing a financial meltdown than about ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson. Financiers have yet to own up publicly to their own greed, arrogance and incompetence. And leaders of foreign governments still think that this is an American problem and that they have no need to mount similar rescue efforts in their own countries.”

To call what a majority of the House of Representatives did yesterday in voting down the bailout an action based on “ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson” is a slur on American democracy. It shows what we already know: the Washington Post is really a house organ of the financial elite. And in dissing what is really part of a widespread populist uprising against financial abuses which have produced a condition approaching debt slavery for a majority of the U.S. population, Pearlstein shows a lack of respect that is typical, though appalling.

His prescription? “And they will come around, reluctantly, to the understanding that the only way to get out of these situations is to have governments all around the world borrow gobs of money and effectively nationalize large swaths of the financial system so it can be restructured, recapitalized, reformed and returned to private ownership once the crisis has passed and the economy has gotten back on its feet.”

In other words, Pearlstein is really a Keynesian. Governments need to “borrow gobs of money and effectively nationalize large swaths of the financial system.” This means trillions added to the national debt.

But in the point about nationalization there is a glimmer of truth, though not the way Pearlstein means it. For he is wrong in thinking that this particular bailout bill which rewards years of greed, criminality, and government collusion in private banking swindles is the way to proceed. Neither is it right for the government to administer bad bankers’ debts while already the big banks that leveraged the terrible investment decisions­ – Citibank, the Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase – ­are getting off scot-free and adding to their empires by gobbling up the small fry.

What then should be done?

Here I would like to turn to a proposal by a man I have met and respect. His name is Darrell Castle, and he is the 2008 candidate for vice-president of the Constitution Party. Castle has spent the last year traveling around the country meeting people on Main Street and listening to what they have to say.

This is what Castle proposes in the Constitution Party’s latest newsletter:

“The Federal Reserve Banks should be seized by Congress under Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. The FED banks could survive as clearinghouse banks, but the Federal Reserve that has robbed the American people for 100 years would cease to exist. The debt owed by the American people to the FED banks would be discharged in bankruptcy. Congress would take monetary policy from the FED and would simply stand in place of the FED through a monetary board. The FED credit computers would be transferred to Congress who would issue new credit (money), because under our present system 97% of all money originates as credit. This new credit would keep the system going and prevent collapse. It could all be done without interest and without debt. The backs of the international banking cartel would be broken forever, and the American people through their elected representatives would control monetary policy; i.e. money in circulation, interest rates, and credit availability.”

Pearlstein, Bush, Paulson, Pelosi, et.al., along with Obama and McCain, should also read the U.S. Constitution. Then they would see that the problem stems from the fact that in 1913 Congress privatized our money supply by turning it over to the private banks that own the Federal Reserve System. This is also why we have lived under the mass delusion that a healthy financial sector leads to a healthy producing economy.

Actually it’s the other way around. The financial sector should support the producing economy, not bleed it dry through interest, fees, commissions, and the destruction that arises from financial profit-seeking.

There is also the fact that while the producing economy has been hammered by job outsourcing and bled white by financial parasitism, it is still a powerful machine that can produce the goods and services people need. We are a strong, capable nation. And we are blessed with the resources we require for a decent standard of living, though not necessarily at a rate of consumption that forever outpaces the rest of the world. But what is wrong with that? The underlying strength of the producing economy was on display this morning, when the Dow-Jones defied the doomsayers by coming back strongly the day after the bailout was defeated.

We now need to do what Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party recommends: Use the power of the money supply to rebuild the producing economy that we have given away and rebuild it from the bottom up: from Main Street.

Unfortunately the fat cats and their political and media apologists “just don’t get it.” But the American people and the members of congress who voted the right way yesterday do.

Copyright 2008 by Richard C. Cook

The Rules of the Bail-out From Rep. Kaptur (D-OH)

October 1, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Banks, Corruption, Financial Markets Bail-out, Money, Politics, Rep. Kapture (D-OH), Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

You’re going to LOVE this woman –

Say WHAT Barney?!

September 30, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Banks, Barney Frank - Chairman, Congress, Corruption, Cronie-ism, Fannie Mae, Financial Markets Bail-out, Freddie Mac, House Financial Services Committee, Money-Money-Money, Politics, Power, Stock Market, Too Much Power

From a New York Times article of SEPTEMBER 11, 2003!

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” — Barney Frank (D-MA) is the current Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Read the rest of the article and what was proposed 5 years ago – here.

No one’s clean in this mess

September 30, 2008 in Alan Greenspan, Arrogance, Banking Crisis, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, Congress, Corruption, Cronie-ism, Financial Markets Bail-out, George W. Bush, Goldman Sachs, Government, John McCain, Money, Nancy Pelosi, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, The Senate, This Administration, Too Much Power, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Opinion from The Los Angeles Times –

By Jonah Goldberg Sept. 30, 2008

On Sunday evening, Republican House Minority Leader John A. Boehner explained his considered opinion on the $700-billion Wall Street bailout plan: It’s a “crap sandwich,” he said, but he was going to eat it.

Well, it turned out he couldn’t shove it down his colleagues’ throats. The bill failed on a bipartisan basis, but it was the Republicans who failed to deliver the votes they promised. Some complained that Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi drove some of them to switch their votes with her needlessly partisan floor speech on the subject. Of course Pelosi’s needlessly partisan. This is news?

The Republican complaint is beyond childish. Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, a man saturated with guilt for this crisis, nonetheless was right to ridicule the GOP crybabies on Monday. “I’ll make an offer,” he added. “Give me [their] names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”

Would that Frank had been imbued with such a spirit earlier. Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has spent the last few years ridiculing Alan Greenspan, John McCain and others who sought more regulation for Fannie Mae’s market-distorting schemes — the fons et origo of this financial crisis. Now he says “the private sector got us into this mess.” His partner in crime, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a chief beneficiary of Fannie Mae lobbyists’ largesse, claims this mess is the result of poor oversight — without even hinting at the fact he is in charge of oversight of banks. They sound like pimps complaining about the prevalence of STDs among prostitutes.

And let us not forget that the Democrats, with a 31-seat majority, could not get 95 of their own to vote for the bailout, largely because it didn’t provide enough taxpayer money to their left-wing special interests. Would that they thought about the country.

The one man who truly tried to treat this crisis like a crisis — McCain — was ridiculed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who implored him to come to Washington to help in the first place. And the news media, which now treat any Republican action that threatens a Barack Obama victory as inherently dishonorable, uncritically accepted the bald Democratic lie that McCain ruined a bipartisan bailout deal last Friday.

This is not to say that McCain knows what to do. Faced with an unprecedented financial crisis involving frozen global credit markets and a maelstrom of moral hazard, his standard response is to talk about wiping out earmarks and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Memo to Mr. McCain: Waste, fraud and abuse are the only things holding the system together at this point.

Obama is no better. The man has spent two weeks irresponsibly excoriating his opponent for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong — a perfectly leaderly thing for McCain to have said during a panic. Then, campaigning in Colorado on Monday, the day the market plunged 777.68 points, Obama proclaimed: “We’ve got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows.”

Perhaps after Al Qaeda seizes Baghdad, a President Obama would finally declare, “Hey, we can win this thing!”

Meanwhile, President Bush, his popularity ratings stuck at below-freezing numbers, has decided to cling to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for warmth on the grounds that the vaunted former Goldman Sachs chair has the credibility to sell the solution to a problem he’s been exacerbating for 18 months. When a reporter for Forbes magazine asked a Treasury spokesman last week why Congress had to lay out $700 billion, the answer came back: “It’s not based on any particular data point.” Rather: “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

There’s a confidence builder.

As for the reputedly free-market firebrands of the congressional GOP, with whom my sympathies generally lie, I cannot let pass without comment the fact that they controlled the legislative branch for most of the last eight years. Only now, when capitalism is in flames, does this fire brigade try to enforce the free-market fire codes without compromise.

I loathe populism. But if there ever has been a moment when reasonable men’s hands itch for the pitchfork, this must surely be it. No one is blameless. No one is pure. Two decades of crapulence by the political class has been prologue to the era of coprophagy that is now upon us. It is crap sandwiches for as far as the eye can see.

You DID Know This About Treasury Secretary Paulson, Didn’t You?

September 30, 2008 in Arrogance, Banking Crisis, Banks, Corruption, Cronie-ism, Economics, Financial Markets Bail-out, Goldman Sachs, Money, Politics, Power, Stock Market, This Administration, Too Much Power, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Unbelievable

From the U. S. Treasury – (Our emphasis in bold red.)

President George W. Bush nominated Henry M. Paulson, Jr. to be the 74th Secretary of the Treasury on June 19, 2006. The United States Senate unanimously confirmed Paulson to the position on June 28, 2006 and he was sworn into office on July 10, 2006 by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. As Treasury Secretary, Paulson is the President’s leading policy advisor on a broad range of domestic and international economic issues.

Before coming to Treasury, Paulson was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs since the firm’s initial public offering in 1999. He joined Goldman Sachs Chicago Office in 1974 and rose through the ranks holding several positions including, Managing Partner of the firm’s Chicago office, Co-head of the firm’s investment Banking Division, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Co-Senior partner.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Paulson was a member of the White House Domestic Council, serving as Staff Assistant to the President from 1972 to 1973, and as Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972.

Paulson graduated from Dartmouth in 1968, where he majored in English, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an All Ivy, All East football player. He received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1970. He and his wife, Wendy, have two children, Amanda and Merritt.

Now – this is an interesting “take” on the bail-out issue from a columnist at Bloomberg.com and why Goldman Sachs NEEDS this money (your money). It’s a tough read for those of us who did NOT make $68.5 million last year, as did Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs…or even the $10 million or more “many otherwise ordinary human beings took home” – but well worth your time to see how these guys think. Here’s an excerpt about our boy Henry –

“…One of the things they say is that, in leaving Goldman for government service, Paulson made the greatest trade of his life. Not only was he required to sell his half-billion dollars in Goldman stock near the high, but also, as Treasury Secretary, he was exempt from capital-gains taxes. By getting out of Goldman while the getting was good, the guy may have doubled his net worth.“

Basel II and the Bail-out

September 30, 2008 in Banking Crisis, Banks, Basel II, Ben Bernanke, Congress, Economics, Financial Markets Bail-out, International, Money, Nancy Pelosi, Politics, Power, Stock Market, The "Fed" - Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Ask your Representative and Senators how Basel II is impacting the bail-out – and why we haven’t heard anything about it on the “news.”

From Wikipedia –

Basel II is the second of the Basel Accords, which are recommendations on banking laws and regulations issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The purpose of Basel II, which was initially published in June 2004, is to create an international standard that banking regulators can use when creating regulations about how much capital banks need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks banks face. Advocates of Basel II believe that such an international standard can help protect the international financial system from the types of problems that might arise should a major bank or a series of banks collapse. In practice, Basel II attempts to accomplish this by setting up rigorous risk and capital management requirements designed to ensure that a bank holds capital reserves appropriate to the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending and investment practices. Generally speaking, these rules mean that the greater risk to which the bank is exposed, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability.