rollingstone.com— The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
Mar 19, 2009View in Crawl 4
I cannot believe that the SEC put Martha Stewart in Jail for selling out 2,000 Shares of Stock and let all of this go on unattended to. Shame on them and there should be prison time for those in the regulatory departments who are paid and entrusted to look out for the PUBLIC investor for turning a blind eye to the markets systemic problems.
"What is needed is a list of every company and CEO who is getting money. Then a list of their actual starting investment, you will find that these groups that can not be allowed to fail are being paid off at 2008 mid year values not at the fallen levels."I would like to see such a list as well. Any ideas anyone? Meanwhile, here is a list of the funds committed under TARP to the corporate thieves that which have picked our pockets while NOT opening up credit markets: <a class="user" href="http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp-money" rel="nofollow">http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp ...</a>My source on the credit markets: "A new Treasury report has found the nation’s largest banks are continuing to reduce the flow of credit to new homeowners and consumers despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts. In December, the nation’s twenty-one largest banks lent out $162 billion for first mortgages. Less than half that amount was lent out in January. New home equity credit lines decreased from $15 billion to just $5 billion." <a class="user" href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/17/headlines" rel="nofollow">http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/17/headlines</a> Apparently the "Treasury report" is this one: <a class="user" href="http://www.treas.gov/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/report0315.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.treas.gov/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?http://w ...</a>
"Government is a social contract; as such it has obligations to the people who establish it."Yeah guess what, none of the people that established it are alive. So it has no obligations.
they were duped.It's not like the electorate had much of a choice between Obama or McCain...and those of us that saw it all voted third party.people were too busy trying to pick the winner rather than actually voting.
<a class="user" href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html">http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.h ...</a>BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.BILL MOYERS: You are.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. All right? They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent. They think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the exits. And we won't rely on deposit insurance. And, by the way, you can rely on deposit insurance. And it's foolishness. All right? Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives. But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, "We just can't let the big banks fail." That's wrong.BILL MOYERS: But what might happen, at this point, if in fact they keep from us the true health of the banks?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, then the banks will, as they did in Japan, either stay enormously weak, or Treasury will be forced to increasingly absurd giveaways of taxpayer money. We've seen how horrific AIG -- and remember, they kept secrets from everyone.BILL MOYERS: A.I.G. did?WILLIAM K. BLACK: What we're doing with -- no, Treasury and both administrations. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration kept secret from us what was being done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs. Secretary Paulson's firm, that he had come from being CEO. It got the largest amount of money. $12.9 billion. And they didn't want us to know that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and not Congressional pressure, by the way, on Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.Where Congress said, "We will not give you a single penny more unless we know who received the money." And, you know, when he was Treasury Secretary, Paulson created a recommendation group to tell Treasury what they ought to do with AIG. And he put Goldman Sachs on it.BILL MOYERS: Even though Goldman Sachs had a big vested stake.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Massive stake. And even though he had just been CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary. Now, in most stages in American history, that would be a scandal of such proportions that he wouldn't be allowed in civilized society.BILL MOYERS: Yeah, like a conflict of interest, it seems.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Massive conflict of interests.BILL MOYERS: So, how did he get away with it?WILLIAM K. BLACK: I don't know whether we've lost our capability of outrage. Or whether the cover up has been so successful that people just don't have the facts to react to it.BILL MOYERS: Who's going to get the facts?WILLIAM K. BLACK: We need some chairmen or chairwomen--BILL MOYERS: In Congress.WILLIAM K. BLACK: --in Congress, to hold the necessary hearings. And we can blast this out. But if you leave the failed CEOs in place, it isn't just that they're terrible business people, though they are. It isn't just that they lack integrity, though they do. Because they were engaged in these frauds. But they're not going to disclose the truth about the assets.BILL MOYERS: And we have to know that, in order to know what?WILLIAM K. BLACK: To know everything. To know who committed the frauds. Whose bonuses we should recover. How much the assets are worth. How much they should be sold for. Is the bank insolvent, such that we should resolve it in this way? It's the predicate, right? You need to know the facts to make intelligent decisions. And they're deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don't want the facts. And this is not new. The Reagan Administration's central priority, at all times, during the Savings and Loan crisis, was covering up the losses.BILL MOYERS: So, you're saying that people in power, political power, and financial power, act in concert when their own behinds are in the ringer, right?WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's right. And it's particularly a crisis that brings this out, because then the class of the banker says, "You've got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse. If they understand how bad it is, they'll run for the exits."BILL MOYERS: Yeah, and this week in New York, at this conference, you described this as more than a financial crisis. You called it a moral crisis.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes.BILL MOYERS: Why?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Because it is a fundamental lack of integrity. But also because, if you look back at crises, an economist who is also a presidential appointee, as a regulator in the Savings and Loan industry, right here in New York, Larry White, wrote a book about the Savings and Loan crisis. And he said, you know, one of the most interesting questions is why so few people engaged in fraud? Because objectively, you could have gotten away with it. But only about ten percent of the CEOs, engaged in fraud. So, 90 percent of them were restrained by ethics and integrity. So, far more than law or by F.B.I. agents, it's our integrity that often prevents the greatest abuses. And what we had in this crisis, instead of the Savings and Loan, is the most elite institutions in America engaging or facilitating fraud.BILL MOYERS: This wound that you say has been inflicted on American life. The loss of worker's income. And security and pensions and future happened, because of the misconduct of a relatively few, very well-heeled people, in very well-decorated corporate suites, right?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Right.BILL MOYERS: It was relatively a handful of people.WILLIAM K. BLACK: And their ideologies, which swept away regulation. So, in the example, regulation means that cheaters don't prosper. So, instead of being bad for capitalism, it's what saves capitalism. "Honest purveyors prosper" is what we want. And you need regulation and law enforcement to be able to do this. The tragedy of this crisis is it didn't need to happen at all.<a class="user" href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html">http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.h ...</a>
chowdowntoniteMar 21, 2009
I cannot believe that the SEC put Martha Stewart in Jail for selling out 2,000 Shares of Stock and let all of this go on unattended to. Shame on them and there should be prison time for those in the regulatory departments who are paid and entrusted to look out for the PUBLIC investor for turning a blind eye to the markets systemic problems.
damo69Mar 21, 2009
Did anyone else read that paragraph in Yahtzee's voice or was it just me?
firebhaalMar 21, 2009
really long; enjoyed readingrl;er
malinseMar 22, 2009
In Nigeria people who have bread to sell are only accepting gold for it. The currency is inflated over 1,000%
power2thapeopleMar 22, 2009
"What is needed is a list of every company and CEO who is getting money. Then a list of their actual starting investment, you will find that these groups that can not be allowed to fail are being paid off at 2008 mid year values not at the fallen levels."I would like to see such a list as well. Any ideas anyone? Meanwhile, here is a list of the funds committed under TARP to the corporate thieves that which have picked our pockets while NOT opening up credit markets: <a class="user" href="http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp-money" rel="nofollow">http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp ...</a>My source on the credit markets: "A new Treasury report has found the nation’s largest banks are continuing to reduce the flow of credit to new homeowners and consumers despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts. In December, the nation’s twenty-one largest banks lent out $162 billion for first mortgages. Less than half that amount was lent out in January. New home equity credit lines decreased from $15 billion to just $5 billion." <a class="user" href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/17/headlines" rel="nofollow">http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/17/headlines</a> Apparently the "Treasury report" is this one: <a class="user" href="http://www.treas.gov/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/report0315.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.treas.gov/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?http://w ...</a>
bigmanoncampusApr 2, 2009
Thankfully, we have the 2nd amendment.
ronpaulsApr 3, 2009
"Government is a social contract; as such it has obligations to the people who establish it."Yeah guess what, none of the people that established it are alive. So it has no obligations.
awakeamericanApr 6, 2009
they were duped.It's not like the electorate had much of a choice between Obama or McCain...and those of us that saw it all voted third party.people were too busy trying to pick the winner rather than actually voting.
joe8packApr 6, 2009
<a class="user" href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html">http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.h ...</a>BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.BILL MOYERS: You are.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. All right? They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent. They think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the exits. And we won't rely on deposit insurance. And, by the way, you can rely on deposit insurance. And it's foolishness. All right? Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives. But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, "We just can't let the big banks fail." That's wrong.BILL MOYERS: But what might happen, at this point, if in fact they keep from us the true health of the banks?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, then the banks will, as they did in Japan, either stay enormously weak, or Treasury will be forced to increasingly absurd giveaways of taxpayer money. We've seen how horrific AIG -- and remember, they kept secrets from everyone.BILL MOYERS: A.I.G. did?WILLIAM K. BLACK: What we're doing with -- no, Treasury and both administrations. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration kept secret from us what was being done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs. Secretary Paulson's firm, that he had come from being CEO. It got the largest amount of money. $12.9 billion. And they didn't want us to know that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and not Congressional pressure, by the way, on Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.Where Congress said, "We will not give you a single penny more unless we know who received the money." And, you know, when he was Treasury Secretary, Paulson created a recommendation group to tell Treasury what they ought to do with AIG. And he put Goldman Sachs on it.BILL MOYERS: Even though Goldman Sachs had a big vested stake.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Massive stake. And even though he had just been CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary. Now, in most stages in American history, that would be a scandal of such proportions that he wouldn't be allowed in civilized society.BILL MOYERS: Yeah, like a conflict of interest, it seems.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Massive conflict of interests.BILL MOYERS: So, how did he get away with it?WILLIAM K. BLACK: I don't know whether we've lost our capability of outrage. Or whether the cover up has been so successful that people just don't have the facts to react to it.BILL MOYERS: Who's going to get the facts?WILLIAM K. BLACK: We need some chairmen or chairwomen--BILL MOYERS: In Congress.WILLIAM K. BLACK: --in Congress, to hold the necessary hearings. And we can blast this out. But if you leave the failed CEOs in place, it isn't just that they're terrible business people, though they are. It isn't just that they lack integrity, though they do. Because they were engaged in these frauds. But they're not going to disclose the truth about the assets.BILL MOYERS: And we have to know that, in order to know what?WILLIAM K. BLACK: To know everything. To know who committed the frauds. Whose bonuses we should recover. How much the assets are worth. How much they should be sold for. Is the bank insolvent, such that we should resolve it in this way? It's the predicate, right? You need to know the facts to make intelligent decisions. And they're deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don't want the facts. And this is not new. The Reagan Administration's central priority, at all times, during the Savings and Loan crisis, was covering up the losses.BILL MOYERS: So, you're saying that people in power, political power, and financial power, act in concert when their own behinds are in the ringer, right?WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's right. And it's particularly a crisis that brings this out, because then the class of the banker says, "You've got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse. If they understand how bad it is, they'll run for the exits."BILL MOYERS: Yeah, and this week in New York, at this conference, you described this as more than a financial crisis. You called it a moral crisis.WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes.BILL MOYERS: Why?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Because it is a fundamental lack of integrity. But also because, if you look back at crises, an economist who is also a presidential appointee, as a regulator in the Savings and Loan industry, right here in New York, Larry White, wrote a book about the Savings and Loan crisis. And he said, you know, one of the most interesting questions is why so few people engaged in fraud? Because objectively, you could have gotten away with it. But only about ten percent of the CEOs, engaged in fraud. So, 90 percent of them were restrained by ethics and integrity. So, far more than law or by F.B.I. agents, it's our integrity that often prevents the greatest abuses. And what we had in this crisis, instead of the Savings and Loan, is the most elite institutions in America engaging or facilitating fraud.BILL MOYERS: This wound that you say has been inflicted on American life. The loss of worker's income. And security and pensions and future happened, because of the misconduct of a relatively few, very well-heeled people, in very well-decorated corporate suites, right?WILLIAM K. BLACK: Right.BILL MOYERS: It was relatively a handful of people.WILLIAM K. BLACK: And their ideologies, which swept away regulation. So, in the example, regulation means that cheaters don't prosper. So, instead of being bad for capitalism, it's what saves capitalism. "Honest purveyors prosper" is what we want. And you need regulation and law enforcement to be able to do this. The tragedy of this crisis is it didn't need to happen at all.<a class="user" href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html">http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.h ...</a>
Closed AccountApr 9, 2009
I blame the liberal media :) Well, media in general. People would rather watch American Idol, than take an interest in how their country is being run.
theoldman999Feb 2, 2010
It's all about money ain't a damn thing funny, got to have a con in this land of milk and honey.<a class="user" href="http://www.onlinecheddar.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.onlinecheddar.com</a>