By Jenny Zhang
Federal Reserve Literally Killing Our Money
By dailyreckoning
Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury | Its My Forum
By Alex
Fed discloses more on AIG, Bear bailout vehicles
MarketWatch
NY Fed reveals its Bear Stearns portfolio
Reuters
Fed's Duke Says Banks Weak, Lending 'Great Concern'
BusinessWeek
Inflation: 'Financial Death by a Thousand Cuts'
Knowledge@Wharton
First, the expansion of the Federal Reserve's money supply during the past 18 months has been enormous and unprecedented.
How the Federal Reserve Spends Money - Inform
How the Federal Reserve Spends Money
SYNTAGMA » Random Snippets: Gee, thanks Ben
By John Evans
is barack obama comparable to john f kennedy? | Its My Forum
By Alex
It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the united States of America. United States Notes” were issued as an interest-free ...
Bank Holiday, FDIC Report, and the Federal Reserve Secrets ...
By admin Watch video.
How The Fed Profited From The Crisis
Forbes (blog)
Only the Fed's crony's get help...
ReplyDeleteYvonne McBride Acosta, the poster child for the problems of the loan
modification mess, still has no loan mod.
I’ve written about her a number of times, documenting how she has been
offered and paid her loan mod payments, only to see the deal taken away
four times. I most recently reported that five months after she complained
to the Florida attorney general and local officials pulled business away
from Bank of America in protest of the way it was treating borrowers like
Acosta, still, she didn’t have a deal.
http://tinyurl.com/yk82xcs
WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday it's "deeply unfair" that some financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession than millions of ordinary Americans.
ReplyDelete...."If you're an Obama supporter, how do you defend not only the choice of Timmy for the job in the first place, but President Obama's continued "confidence and support" in the very man who has admitted that the financial system that he oversaw and was charged with monitoring was being run "in a crazy way"?"
http://tinyurl.com/y9ljs6j
My new article, “Looting Main Street,” is out on newsstands in Rolling Stone. It’s about Jefferson County, Alabama, and how a group of Wall Street banks (in particular JP Morgan Chase) ran the Birmingham area into the ground with predatory interest rate swap deals.
ReplyDeleteThe really sordid part of the Jefferson County story is how the banks funneled millions of dollars to buddies of the County Commissioner, who in turn bribed the local pols to sign off on the crappy swap deals. In the case of former Commissioner Larry Langford, a local greaseball named Bill Blount who had been paid millions in “consulting” fees by the banks was literally following Langford around with a charge card, picking up the tab for things like watches and Zegna suits. We get a rare look into this process in JeffCo, where the SEC published transcripts of taped conversations involving JP Morgan bankers talking about how much money it would take to grease guys like Blount. “Just tell us how much,” we hear former JP Morgan executive Charles LeCroy saying.
http://tinyurl.com/y9umqsj
Obama's dream team is America's nightmare...
ReplyDeleteThat such a blatant violation of anti-trust laws took place and neither JP Morgan nor Goldman have been prosecuted for it is yet another mystery of the current financial crisis. "This is an open-and-shut case of anti-competitive behavior," says Taylor, the former regulator.
That's putting it mildly: The deals wound up being the largest swap agreements in JP Morgan's history. Making matters worse, the payoffs didn't even wind up costing the bank a dime. As the SEC explained in a statement on the scam, JP Morgan "passed on the cost of the unlawful payments by charging the county higher interest rates on the swap transactions." In other words, not only did the bank bribe local politicians to take the sucky deal, they got local taxpayers to pay for the bribes. And because Jefferson County had no idea what kind of deal it was getting on the swaps, JP Morgan could basically charge whatever it wanted. According to an analysis of the swap deals commissioned by the county in 2007, taxpayers had been overcharged at least $93 million on the transactions.
JP Morgan was far from alone in the scam: Virtually everyone doing business in Jefferson County was on the take. Four of the nation's top investment banks, the very cream of American finance, were involved in one way or another with payoffs to Blount in their scramble to do business with the county. In addition to JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns paid Langford's bagman $2.4 million, while Lehman Brothers got off cheap with a $35,000 "arranger's fee." At least a dozen of the county's contractors were also cashing in, along with many of the county commissioners. "If you go into the county courthouse," says Michael Morrison, a planner who works for the county, "there's a gallery of past commissioners on the wall. On the top row, every single one of 'em but two has been investigated, indicted or convicted. It's a joke."
http://tinyurl.com/y9umqsj
Jesse's site says it all...
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things that 'put me off' of Obama was the choice he made of key appointments to his Administration, selecting the two Robert Rubin acolytes Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to his team, marginalizing Paul Volcker, and then making no place for Robert Reich.
Make no mistake, the Fed looks to have been abusing its secrecy and its position, and Bernanke and Geithner are culpable. Reich makes the points as well or better than I could so here is his recent piece on the subject. All the blog's are picking it up.
The Fed has a big problem. It acts in secret. That makes it an odd duck in a democracy. As long as it’s merely setting interest rates, its secrecy and political independence can be justified. But once it departs from that role and begins putting billions of dollars of taxpayer money at risk — choosing winners and losers in the capitalist system — its legitimacy is questionable.
http://tinyurl.com/yzfhs7h
Who's in charge?
ReplyDeleteListen:
Simon Johnson: Big Banks Are Blackmailing the Country
http://tinyurl.com/yk52blb
Give the fed more regulatory power? Are you OOYFM?
ReplyDeleteNY Times on Wage Garnishment
Ruth M. Owens, a disabled Cleveland woman, was sued by Discover Bank in 2004 for an unpaid credit card. Ms. Owens offered a defense, sending a handwritten note to the court.
“After paying my monthly utilities, there is no money left except a little food money and sometimes it isn’t enough,” she wrote.
Robert Triozzi, a judge at the time, heard the case. He found that over a period of several years, Ms. Owens had paid nearly $3,500 on an original balance of $1,900. But Discover was suing her for $5,564, mostly for late fees, compound interest, penalties and other charges. He called Discover’s actions “unconscionable” and threw the case out.
http://tinyurl.com/yhh99ms
And you wonder why the top 1% do the best?
ReplyDeleteTimothy Geithner is a Sniveling Scamster
Whew. That was fast. It didn't take long for Wall Street to figure out how to game Obama's new mortgage modification program, did it? The plan was hyped as help for "struggling homeowners", but it turns out, it's just another stealth bailout for pudgy bank-execs. It's funny, the program hasn't even kicked in yet and, already, bigtime speculators are riffling through their filing cabinets looking any garbage paper they can find to dump on Uncle Sam. Take a look at this on today's Bloomberg report:
"Subprime-mortgage securities are rising at an accelerating pace as the U.S. begins to encourage reductions to homeowners’ balances, which may lead to fewer foreclosures and a quicker end to the housing slump....Senior-ranked bonds tied to borrowers with poor credit will mostly benefit after the Treasury Department said for the first time it would seek to cut the size of mortgages, reducing the likelihood that loan modifications will fail, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. (Bloomberg)
What does it mean? It means that Obama's mortgage modification extravaganza has touched-off a gold rush in toxic paper.
http://tinyurl.com/yzrcael
APRIL 3, 2010.U.S. Probes Foreclosure-Data Provider
ReplyDeleteLender Processing Services Unit Draws Inquiry Over the Steps That Led to Faulty Bank Paperwork
LPS was recently referenced in a bankruptcy case involving Sylvia Nuer, a Bronx, N.Y., homeowner who had filed for protection from creditors in 2008.
Diana Adams, a U.S. government lawyer who monitors bankruptcy courts, argued in a brief filed earlier this year in the Nuer case that an LPS employee signed a document that wrongly said J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had owned Ms. Nuer's loan.
Documents related to the loan were "patently false or misleading," according to Ms. Adams's court papers. J.P. Morgan Chase, which has withdrawn its request to foreclose, declined to comment.
Linda Tirelli, a lawyer for Ms. Nuer, declined to comment directly on the case.
Ms. Kersch said LPS didn't actually create the document and that the company's "sole connection to this case is that our technology and services were utilized by J.P. Morgan Chase and its counsel."
http://tinyurl.com/yj47jwl
What a guy....
ReplyDeleteThe Most Dangerous Man in America: Jamie Dimon
There are two kinds of bankers to fear. The first is incompetent and runs a big bank. This includes such people as Chuck Prince (formerly of Citigroup) and Ken Lewis (Bank of America).
The second type of banker is much more dangerous. This person understands how to control risk within a massive organization, manage political relationships across the political spectrum, and generate the right kind of public relations. When all is said and done, this banker runs a big bank and – here’s the danger – makes it even bigger.
Jamie Dimon is by far the most dangerous American banker of this or any other recent generation.
Not only did Mr. Dimon keep JP Morgan Chase from taking on as much risk its competitors, he also navigated through the shoals of 2008-09 with acuity, ending up with the ultimate accolade of “savvy businessman” from the president himself. His letter to shareholders, which appeared this week, is a tour de force – if Machiavelli were a banker alive today, he could not have done better.
http://tinyurl.com/ydl6sjf
William Black: "If The Obama Administration Continues This Way, It's Going To Have A Record Disaster At The Mid-term Elections"
ReplyDeleteIn this must watch Real News Network interview with William Black, the outspoken critic of all that is wrong and broken with the current system spares no words to once again denounce the (purposeful) ineffectiveness of the administration, and rightfully predicts that with Obama's current track record of inactivity in dealing with the corruption and criminality at the nexus of finance and politics, there will be a massive loss for Democrats at the upcoming mid-term elections. In Black's words: "We knew as soon as we saw Summers and Geithner that the finance side of the administration would be a disaster, but we hoped that political side would be preeminent and say a) this is substantively wrong to continue get in bed with finance and b) it's terrible politics. The democratic party will be crushed if it does this. The political side has failed to get involved. This is one of those rare things where doing the right thing is really good politics, so support candidates that will actually do the right thing. And if the Obama administration continues this way, it's going to have a record disaster at the mid-term elections. There's going to be a massive loss of democratic seats."
http://tinyurl.com/y9bn7qq
Obama and the rest of his cronies would not know daily struggles if they bit him/them in the ass..
ReplyDeleteMom and Pop, Scraping By
All that, and yet the family-run store he opened on Westchester Avenue in 1991 — a mainstay of this working- and middle-class neighborhood — still teeters on the edge, propped up by signs and sidewalk showcases. Sales have fallen by more than half in the last two years. The economy may be turning around in some parts, but not here, not now.
“We saved $100,000 to start up our business, with three kids and a mortgage,” Mr. Scanlon said with a sigh after a long day of tepid sales. “Sherry worked two jobs, as a bookkeeper and waiting on tables. I worked two jobs — plumbing supply by day, handyman by night. You know how hard it is to save $100,000? And now I find myself apologizing to my family.”
http://tinyurl.com/ybp7ddy
Mom and Pop, Scraping By
ReplyDeleteAll that, and yet the family-run store he opened on Westchester Avenue in 1991 — a mainstay of this working- and middle-class neighborhood — still teeters on the edge, propped up by signs and sidewalk showcases. Sales have fallen by more than half in the last two years. The economy may be turning around in some parts, but not here, not now.
“We saved $100,000 to start up our business, with three kids and a mortgage,” Mr. Scanlon said with a sigh after a long day of tepid sales. “Sherry worked two jobs, as a bookkeeper and waiting on tables. I worked two jobs — plumbing supply by day, handyman by night. You know how hard it is to save $100,000? And now I find myself apologizing to my family.”
The Scanlons’ struggles at the Pelham Bay Home Center echo through the neighborhood, and the nation. Within one block of the Scanlons’ store, seven small businesses — among them a Chinese restaurant, a fruit and vegetable market, a nail salon and a real estate office — have closed in the last year. Many more, like Pete’s Car Care across the street, are scraping by, hoping to outmaneuver the recession by reducing orders, firing employees and delaying payments. Banks have offered little help; most will not lend to businesses short on cash, although after months of reproach, this is beginning to change.
http://tinyurl.com/ybp7ddy
Why don't we just get rid of the law?
ReplyDeleteCNN Health has an interesting article detailing illegal marketing practices at Pfizer. However, government officials looked the other way because Pfizer too big to nail.
http://tinyurl.com/yz96uk3
LittleSis is an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans, collaboratively edited by people like you.
ReplyDeleteWe bring transparency to influential social networks by tracking the key relationships of politicians, corporate executives, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated organizations
http://littlesis.org/
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
ReplyDeleteSecond Mortgage Mod Headfake: BlackRock Tries to Jawbone Banks Because Treasury Won’t
Things are suddenly getting very interesting…
Readers may have taken note that the Treasury has launched a son of HAMP, its ineffective program to get banks to provide undertake mortgage modifications, called 2MP.
As far as I can tell, 2MP is a farce. It is simply another back door way to recapitalize troubled banks. Mike Konzcal performed a simple analysis of the portfolios of the biggest second mortgage holders, Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan, and Wells, and using conservative loss assumptions, estimated the gang of four had a total $150 billion hole on their balance sheet among them. 2MP appears to be designed to shovel $50 billion of TARP funds into this hole, with dubious benefits to borrowers.
http://tinyurl.com/yful3rm
Freedom Watch - Gerald Celente - Rise of a Third Party
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/y9ggkfa
Davidowitz: Wall St.-D.C. Bigwigs "Buried Our Country ... They Sold Us Down the River"
ReplyDelete"They buried our country, they sold us down the river," he tells Aaron and Henry in the accompanying clip. "They allowed Wall Street and the banks to run wild with our money and take unconscionable risks with our money. And now that it's hit the fan they don't know what happened? It's preposterous."
http://tinyurl.com/ygwcagw
Making Homes Affordable falling flat
ReplyDeletehttp://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/theslant/blog/2010/04/making_homes_affordable_fallin.html
Thank you of information.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.currencyrates.in