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POPSThere ought to be hell to pay. Yet another article outlining how the largest investment banks - particularly Goldman Sachs - manipulated the market for their own benefit. What really irks me more than anything is that after betting against the very products they were selling to their clients, they got a MASSIVE government bailout while some of their top competitors got wiped out. To say the game is rigged is the understatement of the year.
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POPS Obama Banking Bill Passed by US House mortgages of financially struggling borrowers was defeated. David Hirschmann, a director of the US Chamber of Commerce, said: “While there is a laundry list of bad choices that were made by the House, the creation of the CFPA tops the list.” However, he said he was encouraged by the “growing group of moderate Democrats” who helped amend the bill to prevent states from setting tougher consumer protection standards. Another provision that has been resisted by banks allows regulators to impose a loss on creditors of failing financial institutions that need to be seized by the government. After stark warnings that the provision would make credit less liquid and more expensive, the size of the “haircut” to be imposed on creditors was reduced to up to 10 per cent and some securities were exempted. But it stayed in the bill. Read full Financial Times article at http://bit.ly/8SGlGW Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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POPSSenators impatient With Fraud Prosecutions The deck continues to be stacked by corporate interests against the people and U.S. law (what's left of it, anyway). More from the article below: "Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said cases against executives and directors are especially difficult because the defendants are relatively sophisticated. "Many times they are developing defenses as they go along, and it takes a long time to unwind those," Perkins said. Breuer acknowledged that some fraud cases could soon become even more difficult if, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court limits prosecutors' ability to bring cases against those who fail to provide "honest services." He said a ruling against the honest-services law would especially hurt cases against government officials."
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POPSGovernment Owned and Operated AIG Failing Another example of what happens when government sticks its nose into private industry. FAILURE! AIG was failing before US taxpayers were forced to bail them out, and guess what they are still failing. How much more taxpayer money is going to be needed to continue to prop up this failed company? And OBAMA wants to run our health care! GET REAL!
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POPSNo Medical Care for Those Who Are Not “Participating Citizens” less than fools . Whereas thousands are fleeing the natural paradise of California for the arid deserts of no-tax Nevada, there is no Nevada to the United States . . . The New York Times (again) quoted a credit analyst at Hexagon Securities named David Havens in a story on CIT this financial firm trying to find financing saying, “ he only game in town right now is the government.” Sometimes I don’t even care. No one else seems to care. Certainly no one under 35 cares. No one stood up against Sotomayor who should have. I feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot here to prove some point before an implacable unstoppable force of history (A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,/ Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it/ Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds), and it’s totally not worth it. I just don’t care. Rahm Emanuel’s Brother and Obama’s Top Health Advisor: While I’m not caring, Rahm Emanuel’s brother, who is,
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POPSTime for Congress to Start Issuing Subpoenas
Pulling the TARP over taxpayers' eyes By: Michael Barone Last fall, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told shocked Americans that the $700 billion TARP had to be passed immediately but not to worry because taxpayers would eventually make money on the investments as banks and other institutions getting bailout money paid it back. To the contrary, Barofsky said, not only are banks hoarding TARP funds, it is "very unlikely" that most of the TARP money will ever be repaid, let alone turn a profit. The hastily passed bill included minimal reporting requirements, so a third of all TARP recipients admit they used the money to repay loans, merge with other banks, and even purchase more mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the two institutions at the heart of the housing market collapse. Some companies are even using TARP to pay off other government loans in what auditors call "bailout arbitrage." And it's all perfectly legal.
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POPSRESCUE GATE: A TWENTY-FOUR TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT
What is the Treasury Department hiding? The government’s top watchdog over the $700 billion “rescue package” says that the Treasury Department refuses to let the taxpayers know how that money has been spent. Why? Neil Barofsky is the special inspector general over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). According to The Hill, “Barofsky said that while the TARP program that Congress passed amounts to $700 billion, the total federal government support since 2007 for the economy and the financial sector could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion. The government has committed significantly more money through a variety of other federal agencies and programs.” Don’t let that quote go over your heads folks. He said the bailout “could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion.” What!!!!!!!!!!!! Who authorized this? The taxpayers didn’t. Congress didn’t. Who then? $23.7 trillion is twice America’s total gross domestic product and way above the $700 billion authorized.
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POPSWhat will cause the next US financial crisis! Repos and not subprime mortgages caused the present financial crisis. The top three banks in the world by market capitalization are now; 1) Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 2) China Construction Bank 3) Bank of China Citibank and Bank of America are not even on the list of the top twenty.
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