"Bamboozled": Fed refuses to disclose recipients of $2 trillion in loans
By SilentPatriot Saturday Dec 13, 2008 1:01pmWho could have predicted that the Federal Reserve would abuse its authority by giving away over $2 trillion in "emergency loans" and then refuse to disclose the recipients of those loans when faced with a FOIA request by Bloomberg?
Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.
“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.
Hmmm... I wonder why they would want to hide from the public who is getting all that money? It's sometimes hard to wrap your head around that huge sum of money, but when all is said and done, that is our money. We deserve to know who's getting it.
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This is truly insane! At the end of their corrupt, greedy, lawless administration the Bushies are grabbing whatever they can as they slink out the door. Hearings should be held. Investigations should commence and people need to go to jail.
Unfortunately, it'll be We the People who go to jail, while the Government goes scot-free.
That jackass will continue to smirk. I HATE republicans, I really do.
When are spineless nancy and harry going to put a stop to this idiocy?
I`m afraid the Dems have done it again. Any common citizen-taxpayer would not have agreed to these non-disclosure items. The old fear doctrine worked again. My hate for Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, etc., etc., is greater than the mentally challenged Chimp. They are all bought and paid for, or blackmailed. All that money, or should I say funny-money can purchase gold a solid commodity. When the economy finally goes belly up because the financial institutions (loan sharks) didn`t offer the money for credit, gold will sky rocket. Four years from now we will get the Repugs back because the Dems are incapable of cleaning the mess up. Martial Law.
I think we've been Reided-Pelosied again. They could certainly have rallied the troops and not passed the bailout bill until it had strong Congressional and public oversight on the use of that money.
I wonder if any of it went back to members of Congress?
Unless I'm mistaken, this doesn't have anything to do with the TARP "bailout" bill, but rather general Fed loans, since TARP only covers 700 billion dollars, and the 2 trillion in question is outside of that. I don't think Congress has any oversight on this Fed lending, or at least hasn't voted on it.
Yes, I've read that the Federal Reserve is "private" and so Congress does not have oversight rights normally, but these are unusual times, and that was taxpayer money. Oversight could certainly have been written into the documents authorizing the release of that money, unless NOBODY in Congress knew the Fed was going to be handing it out, and I don't believe that. I just cannot believe there isn't a record of its dispersal somewhere (outside the FR) that could be obtained.
"When are spineless nancy and harry going to put a stop to this idiocy?"
Right after their cheques clear??
OUR MONEY!
The recipients are probably off buying us out from underneath ourselves with the money. The banks have gotten billions and are still taking homes.
You can bet that if anyone was getting welfare the whole family would have to wear scarlet Ps (for poor) on their tattered clothing.
Either they are buying us with our own money, or a significant portion of the funds have gone over seas...
If you mean a bunch of hedge-fund billionaires quickly investing it in Hyundai to jump on the auto-manufacturing vacuum thats about to be created when GM, Ford and Chrysler go bankrupt, I think you're right.
"You can bet that if anyone was getting welfare the whole family would have to wear scarlet Ps (for poor) on their tattered clothing.
An elitist once suggested to an Elder, that very practice for identification purposes. Though the Elder explained to this junior associate, No, that would be unwise... For then, they would know how many of them there are. :-O
without resorting to tarot cards, crystal balls, dionne warwick, nor that green guy from the flintstones i am prepared to shock and amaze you all with my amazing levels of prescience and reveal who the recipients of the $2 trillion are: *drumroll*
those that got us into the mess!!!
score!
Wasn't the Green Guy Osmaldo the Great?
And I use tarot cards and crystal balls myself.
I enjoy polishing my balls.
You leave "THE GREAT GADZOO"® out this. :-P Though I'd prefer to consult, "I Dream of Genie"® as an precaution. ;-P
Wasn't Barbara Eden hot as hell? Still have a crush on her, some 30+ years later.
See, I musta been gay cuz she didn't do a thing for me, nor did Samantha Stevens.
Oh wait, I am. Nevermind.
(I liked Pete from the Mod Squad.)
Who could have predicted that the Federal Reserve would abuse it's authority by giving away over $2 trillion in "emergency loans" and then refuse to disclose the recipients of those loans when faced with a FOIA request by Bloomberg?
Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich. Okay maybe they didn't predict the FOIA bit but both warned of the massive conflicts of interest built into this bailout mess.
Wasn't there a song called Bamboozle the Clown by the Plasmatics?
It ain't on Youtube.
... oh, wait.
going to.
Or do we?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/business/06...
Look at what Chrysler's parent company stands to gain from a few billion.
They're not claiming Executive Priviledge are they?
That's the most abused doctrine of this criminal conspiracy the republicans call government.
Although, it would be nice if they were withholding the information because they're about to start an investigation/prosecution of their own.
That the treasury said if they were to identify which institution received how ever much funding, it would reveal how weak that institution was.
Also they keep saying the value of the securities being covered is hard to determine, and may change depending on accounting rule changes they are considering making.
In other words, hank doesn't know where the money went either.
Reporting on a weak institution would amount to manipulating the stock market.
And since most of those in government own stock, they could be accused of insider trading if they did release the information and it somehow advantaged their portfolio.
That's what happens when Wall Street and Washington overlap.
I think it's a daisy chain (no flowers involved.)
Our tax dollars....2 trillion of it.....doled out without disclosure. BULLSHIT!!! I swear to god we need to storm the fucking gates and make justice our battlecry.
that this may stop when tax revenues run out. People not paying income tax out of protest or just not earning anything.
But then I remembered this is being done with borrowed and or printed money. So even if China cuts us off, the presses will keep running.
I like a mass refusal to pay income tax (which is an illegal institution anyway) but even if the fed continues to print money it devalues the currency. I think the current paradigm for the way our economy and business functions is on lifesupport doing everything in it's power to continue to do the only thing it knows how to do. Perhaps when the death rattle shakes, more lucid, clear sighted voices will help shape a new way. It's my hope anyway. Capitalism geared purely for profit with no regard for the greater good in any way cannot continue. Let's evolve a bit shall we?
Amendment XVI, passed and ratified as per Article V.
Of the 48 states, ratification required at least 36 states...
Secretary of State Philander Knox declared the 16th amendment ratified on the basis of a report from his solicitor, but that report is considered by some as fraudulent.
Eight states (Rhode Island, Utah, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania) did not approve or ratify the amendment.
Texas and Louisiana were forbidden by their own state constitutions to empower the federal government to tax.
Vermont and Massachusetts rejected the amendment with a recorded vote count, and only later declared it passed without a recorded vote after the amendment was declared ratified by Knox.
Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, California and Washington violated their state constitutions in their ratification procedures.
Minnesota did not send any copy of its resolution to Knox, let alone a signed and sealed one, as required.
And Oklahoma, Georgia and Illinois made unacceptable changes in wording. (Some of the above states also made such changes, in addition to their other unacceptable procedures.)
Take 48 states, deduct these 21, and you have proper ratification by only 27 states -- far less than the required 36.
it was always about the money. disaster capitalism. filch the treasury.
Is there anything in America that isn't about the money?!!?
BushCo. has perpetrated the biggest heist in world history.
Looks like Dick Cheney might have to take Scalia on another duck hunting vacation to guarantee that the Supreme Court will turn that FOIA request into a FOAD request.
This is coming from the Federal Reserve. the Federal reserve is a private conglomerate of private bankers and is not part of the federal government.
Why would they be required to share anything under the freedom of info act if they are not part of the federal government?
Not defending them, just saying.
... to a quasi-private enterprise that doesn't have to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. No accountability, no nothin'. That's one sweet magic trick.
Have you ever looked at a dollar bill? It says "Federal Reserve Note".
WTF do you think that's supposed to mean?
So if OUR money is owned by a private corporation that is beholden to no one, exactly WHY are we paying taxes?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???
Well for one thing they'be been arguing against a centralized bank of the US since Andrew Jackson's day.
For another thing you seem to be trying to revive the opposition side of the Greenback controversy following the Depression of 1873. If our money was based on precious metal the average American would be almost unimaginably a lot more in penury.
THEY ARE LYING.
Until bush has all the pardons signed and is safely out of office.
Then and only then will we really start to see the full extent to which these people have robbed us in the greatest heist in the history or the world!
Bush turns us into a Banana Republic, then skedaddles to his "ranch" in PARAGUAY, from whence he cannot be extradited.
Could be worse, we could all be working for Old Navy.
100% employment
is just a diversion? I had a hunch it might be. And since the "Ranch" in Paraguay is sitting on an aquifer and the next wars will be based not on oil but on water, I suggest that part of this missing money will be used to drill for water and corner the market.
I mean, come on! Bush didn't do an 8 year stretch in the Big House for a measley 2 million dollar house in Dallas.
in Paraguay had promised to rectify that situation??
..a Trillion there. Here a Trillion, there a Trillion, everyone's gettin' a Trillion but us..US!
How does the Fed ever expect to collect the interest due on all the money it's "lending" in our name?? If there's no more industry, no jobs, no banks, no insurance companies, no farms, who will be making money and paying taxes on it??? And, after they get all of our "assets" (they can have my house, needs a new heater and a roof soon anyway) which are worth nothing, what will they do with them?
Oh, that's right, I read.saw somwhere that the "great plan" is to
just stuff all of us who don't die from starvation and exposure into little Peopl enclaves, while the rest of the USA ia allowed to revert back to it's natural state - I guess so Cheney and his buddies can go hunting - big time??
Two Trillion Dollars?
Let's see, that's about 7,500 Boeing 777s.
Or, as McCain would call it, "middle class income".
So friggin what.
No one cared much when Rumsfeld announced on Sept Tenth, Two Thousand One, that 2-3 $$$Trillion was missing from the Pentagon.
and then a big - questionable - event took that out of the news cycle.
Holy shit! If that's not the biggest reason for government oversight, I don't know what is!
END THE FED!!!
At what point do Americans realize that the government is the enemy?
It fails to protect you after trillions of dollars invested
It may have either intentionally did nothing, or even facilitated certain terrorist attacks.
It lies you into numerous wars.
It spends billions in propaganda - against YOU
It picks your pocket - repeatedly - ultra grand larceny -
It's corrupt officials are the ones holding the control levers
It creates legislation that outsources your jobs, and insources cheap labor
It creates at defacto police state with surveillance networks, Patriot Act, Victory Act, Military Commission Act, and all sorts of quasi-legal Executive Orders that are targeted against law abiding citizens - not terrorists...
when do you realize that the social contract has been broken?
when do you realize that the beneficial aspects of government, the ones everyone clamors about, can still be re-instituted in another form, under a Constitutional government?
when do you realize that just so-called elections of pre-screened establishment candidates, are not really elections?
with your last statement.
...and posted here lots of times about the loss of our civil liberties, propaganda, stolen elections, creeping fascism, Bush's power grab, etc.
Realizing it, even knowing it for sure, but what can one or a thousand people do? I keep telling my family and friends, they all think I'm nuts - though, several of them have finally relented that I've been right about the economy these past 2 years.
So, what's the solution?
The Seven Percent Solution?
100th Monkey Syndrome.
Of course, the alternative to government is so much better. The idea that anarchy can function in a superior way to government is based on the idea that we're all good people, and we would all live well in peace and harmony without that big bad ol' government butting in on our lives.
Sadly, most people rely on government for at least a few things. Saying "let's toss out the whole system" would just make the have-nots have even less -- social programs do save lives, no matter how much you want to complain about them.
The issue isn't so much government, but *crappy* government. Torturing people is crap, corrupt politicians are horrendous, propaganda and wars are unnecessary.
Of course, we're on the slow train to fascism every time we torture someone, give up our rights because some idiot in a cheap suit scares us a little, or oppress other people because we think we're somehow superior.
Like I've said before...it's wonder The People have the ability to even sit down any longer...We have been bent over and screwed up the ass so many times, and We don't even get dinner and drinks out of it. The louder We scream, the harder We get it. I have good idea where all that money went...has anyone thought to look in Dick and Georges pockets?
It's not real money we're talking about here.
It's just some electrons moving between computers.
Just as long as all the free money goes to bankers, who cares?
Just keep it away from the Autoworkers - or anyone else who works for a living!
It's the Republican way!
/snark
Spot on. Fucking ****s(sorry ladies), their time is coming, Mick, mark my words
“Blind and naked ignorance delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, on all things all day long”
Alfred Tennyson
OK, If Bush won't stand by the constitution and command those records revealed, draft a whole new dollar configuration and render all the monies printed in the last 6 years "counterfeit"! That's what the Nazis would do if they were still running the country. Then arrest the entire Bush family...ALL OF THEM....and prepare trial [Deleted. Over the top-Sitemonitor]
It's TREASON AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! TREASON! TREASON! TREASON! AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. BE AMERICAN......THEY ARE TRYING TO TAKE OVER AMERICA! BUSH BELIEVES NOBODY CARES! SHOW YOUR CONCERN!
Benedict Arnold!
This will be on C&L Soon
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206010...
Incredible read about the former NASDAQ chairman and his ponzi scheme. he has absolutely nothing to show for the 50 billion invested.
This scandal is just starting.
(and for many a decade) to fascist/corporatist America. The central tenet of democracy, the act of disinterested participation for the common good, is long gone. Anybody who can should bail, pronto.
The disinterestetd participation for the common good may've been a central tenent of Modern Democracy, or Constitutional Democracy as I prefer to call it. But Aristotle favored Consititutional Monarchy over democracy, because he saw the latter as essentially selfish.
Aristotle thought that the seat of consciousness was in the heart. Not always on-the-mark.
The Celts believed the seat of consciousness was the head. So they allowed the bodies of their friends and fallen respected enemies to be eaten by animals, but saved and preserved their heads.
But our Founding Fathers must've harkened to Aristotle by creating the Constitution, with it's tripartite structure, and checks and balances. And they distrusted what they called mobocracy, law by whoever could gather the largest mob.
If there was ever any doubt that the Federal Reserve, a private banking cartel that is no more federal than Federal Express, does not exist to serve the American People, this makes for a pretty definitive example. The Reserves exists soley to serve the banks, and the prime intent of that existence is to consolidate power over government. "Whoever controls the money, controls the government".
It's long past time to abolish this unconstitutional arrangement and return control of monetary policy and its execution back to the U.S. Treasury, where it belongs. Doing so would also end the unbelievable scam run by the Fed in which every penny of the money that it orders the US treasury to create is lent to the US government, whereafter the American taxpayers must pay interest on those loans. It's a bucket shop operation designed to make sure that a massive and ever-growing debt to a bunch of slick social parasites, who corruptly gained control our monetary system, can never be paid off. Woodrow wilson , who signed the bill creating the Fed, called it his biggest mistake. It's long past time to correct that mistake.
There was only a 50 year period between the establishment of Greenbacks and the creation of the Federal Reserve. Politicians of the day saw money supply become a political football, liable to change with each new Congress, and each new Administration. Usually the House would favor an increased supply, and the Executives a more restrained supply. This is because the overprinting of money can result in hyperinflation, which the Confederacy experienced, when bread supposedly got as expensive as $5,000.00 Confederate dollars each.
Well, if there's enough physical $ in circulation perhaps $5000 isn't that much. :) The problem with the Federal Reserve is that it's a private institution liable to no one yet their impact in our economy is undeniable. They don't have to disclose who their members are or disclose how they do business. They print money which is given to the government at interest. Therefore there is a built in system of debt whereby the money must be paid back with the interest yet where does this money come from? From creation of more money? It is the bankers therefore that will always have the upper hand and the real power behind the government and therefore have a heavy influence in ideology and policies of America.
WWII was a war between democracies and fascist states. The Democracies (Britain, Netherlands, US, Canada and others) battled the fascists (Germany, Italy, Japan and others. Fascism is government in which the power is held by corporatists (special interest groups typically the business classes) in contrast to a democracy in which all power emanates from the citizenry. Depressingly, 60 years or so post WWII those same democracies are now closer to the fascist states that were defeated at the cost of 60 million lives (the Russians alone lost 27 million soldiers and civilians from 1939-1945) than what they were then. The face of Fascism, by the way, does not require brownshirts, jackboots and lightening collar tags. Nor is it inherently evil. That is a religious term. However, its propensity for evil is greater than what can occur in a democracy as long as the citizens in a democracy do not become complacent and lazy. And that's pretty well the situation today. Do you see anybody in the streets??
Leningrad alone lost lives in the millions. They resorted to eating bread made from sawdust and glue. But part of the carnage was due to Stalin purging his military of experienced officers who might disagree with him, kind of like what happened to Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neal, Valerie Plame, and all those translaters of Farsi who were supposedly gay.
not to mention the cannibalism that also occurred.
I'm not surprised cannibalism may've been involved, but what's your source?
There was a comic strip in Calvin & Hobbes, where Calvin raised his hands and suggested to his teacher they have a class debate on whether cannibalism should be considered not as bad as murder, since it's less wasteful.
there are a number of links to Stalingrad and cannibalism via google. I remember hearing about it on some history channel TV show, specifically I can't tell ya.
but the links via a google search looked legit.
You forgot to mention that it was the American Fascists (Bush, Ford, Lindberg, etc) who brought Hitler to power, supplied his propaganda and managed his finances.
Then, by the time the US "won" the war, these same American Fascists had control of the Military Industrial Complex here in the States.
Pretty slick, huh?
Start a war between "us" and "them" and whichever side wins, the American Fascists come out on top.
That's the "untold story" of World War Two: the American people think "we" won but we didn't - the American Fascists won.
Can anyone guess the name of the elected representative who has introduced a bill to repeal the Federal reserve act????
Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Conyers, Waxman...
you know, heros to the People.
Anyone who has ever noticed the pyramid on the American dollar bill...
oughtta know what it stands for now. ...a big fucking scheme...
wonder what that all see eye lookin' fuckin' thing is ....on top of the pyramid?
its all just inconsequential symbolism.
you know, like the eagle and flag really don't stand for anything, nor the other symbols. they're just artistic expressions.
(j/k)
Who the fuck designed this little owl guy into the one dollar bill?
owl on the dollar bill...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSBP9aYwfhU
or perhaps the symbols of fascism along side the US flag in the Capital House Representative chambers - fasci. These are also along either arm of the Lincoln Monument.
that the fascio represent pictorially...
They're Free-Masonry symbols derived from ancient Egypt. The eye would be the eye of Ra or Horus, and they pyramids a sign of permanence, like hopefully the dollar itself. George Washington was the head of his local chapter of Freemasons, who were generally harmless, not occultic, more like a social club of Deists, who would describe the symbols in their own terms.
thats why his monument is a Obelisk. representative of a severed penis from Horus. Horus was dismembered by Set, and the only thing not recovered was the penis. No joke for those not aware of where this all comes from.
this is partially why the freemasons use an apron to cover the sacred object.
I always understood that Osiris was the one missing a penis. His brother Set had to murder him twice, and the second time chopped him to bits and scattered the parts. Osiris's wife Isis, with their sister who was also Set's wife, Nephthys had to go search for the parts and unify them. The only part they couldn't find was his penis. So Horus had to magically be conceived by Isis with her now maimed husband. Because he was maimed he could no longer be king, but could rule over the underworld. This is according to EA Wallis Budge's translation of the Scroll of the Scribe Ani, which he called The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
However, there were other versions like the Theban which they called The Book of Coming Into the Light, and variations. There were rival sects but the only known book that I know of that still exists is The Book of the Gates, which pushed Ra as it's chief figure, and his nightly cruise through the Underworld in his Barque of a Million Years.
I was going through my books briefly and didn't find what I wanted. But Ra was once upset with mankind, and ripped out one eye which was the Goddess Sekhmet. Instead of a world-wide flood, she was causing world-wide drought and extreme heat. My guess is the Egyptian worried if the Nile Flood was late due to her.
But then Ra got worried, and popped her back into his head, after getting her drunk on red beer.
There were several gods name Horus, but the one who was the son of Osiris and Isis, lost his eye not his penis, in battle with his uncle Set, who lost a hand. That's the origin of the Eye of Horus. However, according to an Egyptian book of Medicine I've read, The Magical Papyri, the eye was also a glyph to help remind Egyptian doctors of the methods and diagnoses they had to consider with a patient. However, that being said if there were two versions of the eye story, then maybe the same can be said of the penis.
I keep editing this damn entry, but the title of the book which I gave as The Gates although correct, is technically The Book of the Am-Tuat, and if any are interested it's available through Alibris.
You mean like this club?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
...(they) worship an Owl at Bohemian Grove.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/pow...
NY Times: Hedge Funds Are Victims, Raising Further Questions
Big sharks eating the little sharks.
scratch that ..
Huge sharks eating the big sharks.
And guess WHO gets to pay for it ???
Yup .. all us little fishes ..
That's why they had to invent religion. "Blessed be the little fishes, yada yada yada," or some crap like that. We get our slice of the pie in the next life.
Um.... righty-O. Gotcha.
"Who could have predicted that the Federal Reserve would abuse it's authority...ect ect...."
I say,
...I love sarcasm!
very snarkastic! Silent Patriot ...very snarkastic!
I posted this story on another thread last evening, but glad C & L has given this story its own thread. But before anyone starts to point a finger at Republicans or Demeocrats, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Just a little history lesson. Jefferson warned us what would happen if you gave control of a countries money to private bankers. Jackson would have none of it and niether would Lincoln. We didn't have a central bank until the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 in the dead of night just prior to Christmas. Both political parties sold the soul of America out on the fateful evening, and in president Wilson's writings he regretted caving in to the bankers as the worst decision he ever made while in office.
The US would be reduced to a slave state because now you would owe your alligence to this private cartel of banks that make up the Federal Reserve. Ask yourselves why a soverign nation would pay interest on money borrowed from private bankers that can never be paid back when the US Treasury, the people bank should be the main bank in the country? That's how the banks control everything that happens in the US. Read Griffins book " The Creature From Jekyll Island".
Many from Wall Street as well as D.C. don't want to see the Federal Reserve go away because then the control over the nation would come to an end. Rewatch Arron Russo's film from a couple of years ago " America From Freedom To Facisim" the truth is there as well as the answer. If he does only one thing when he takes the oath of office, I hope Obama pushes for one or two things, hopefully both. The first would be an ammendment that would abolish the Federal Reserve or at the least create a law that states clearly that any organization calling itself a bank that uses US tax payer funds for such as bailouts, must be fully and totally TRANSPARENT!
The Lobe, Kuhn, Rockefeller familes and others conspired against we the people and for nearly 100 years the Federal Reserve which answers to NO ONE has ruled America. Time to put this bullshit to an end.
Like that's ever going to happen anytime soon. I have a torch. Who has a pitchfork? The only way that the Fed, the Bush regime and its cronies, Wall Street, and the Paulsonator are ever going to be held accountable is when we the people rise up and demand it. I say instead of helping corporations on December 25th by doing gift giving, let's protest.
Man them people at the onion.com come up with some insane stories but this one is too far fetched.
Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction. America has been royally screwed when the Fed was created.
Someone remind me why Obama considers Geithner, Paulson's sidekick in stealing trillions of dollars from the citizens to give to the rich to support their Ponzi scheme, a great person to nominate to Treasury?
Just a hunch, but as the old saying goes, hold your friends close but your enimies closer.
www.truthseeker.com
Madoff Ponzi Scheme Dwarfed by Illuminati Rubin's
The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff Thursday for operating a "Ponzi scheme" costing investors $50 billion made the TV network news. Curiously, a lawsuit the same day against Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for defrauding Citibank shareholders of more than $122 billion, also described as a "Ponzi scheme," got no airplay whatsoever.
As we shall see, Rubin, a Director of Citibank, profited from the shady practices that destroyed the financial system and sent the world's economies into a tailspin. Then, to repair the damage, he and his banker friends put the taxpayer on the hook for trillions.
Rubin didn't get the same publicity as Madoff because of his close connection to Barack Obama.
Robert Rubin's son Jamie was Obama's main Wall Street fundraiser and is now one of his principal advisers. More significant, Obama's economic team consists of Rubin's proteges including Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, Senior Economic Adviser and Peter Orszag, Budget Director. The Times of London has already dubbed them the "Robert Rubin Memorial All Stars."
Clearly, the media don't want people to realize that the candidate of "Change" chose the people responsible for this calamity to be his "economic team." While in the Clinton White House, Rubin, with Summers, helped tear down the regulatory walls between banks, brokerages and insurance companies and freed them to trade in unregulated and little-understood derivatives worth trillions of dollars.
THE LAW SUIT
In an article entitled "Ponzi Scheme at CITI," the New York Post reported: "A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking.
Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.
Investor-plaintiffs in the suit accuse Citi management of overseeing the repackaging of unmarketable collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that no one wanted - and then reselling them to Citi and hiding the poisonous exposure off the books in shell entities.
The lawsuit said that when the bottom fell out of the shaky assets in the past year, Citi's stock collapsed, wiping out more than $122 billion of shareholder value.
However, Rubin and other top insiders were able to keep Citi shares afloat until they could cash out more than $150 million for themselves in "suspicious" stock sales" calculated to maximize the personal benefits from undisclosed inside information," the lawsuit said.
The latest troubles for Rubin, Prince and others emerged in a 500-page investigation by Citigroup investors represented by law firm Kirby McInerney.
The probe was used to amend and add new details to a blanket investor lawsuit filed against Citigroup a year ago. The amended suit called the actions of Citi leaders "a quasi-Ponzi scheme" to hide troubles - and keep Citi stock afloat while insiders unloaded about 3 million shares between Jan. 1, 2004 and Feb. 22, 2008 for huge profits.
In addition to Citigroup, Rubin and Prince, the complaint names Vice Chairman Lewis Kaden, ex-CFO Sallie Krawcheck and her successor CFO Gary Crittenden.
Rubin cleared $30.6 million on his stock sales, while Prince got $26.5 million, former COO Robert Druskin got nearly $32 million and former Global Wealth Management unit chief Todd Thomson got $25.7 million, the suit said."
There's no way to climb out of this pit, is there?
Maybe we should just revert to the barter system in our individual locales and forget about money and consuming goods through monetary purchases. Just keep what you have in good shape, cars, houses, appliances, utilities, etc., and somehow make do.
An excellent article. Thanks!
The FED is hiding 2 trillion for the same reason they backstopped moneymarket funds. They fear a collapse of the system. If people knew bank ZYX was getting funds from a FED special window, they might run to get their money out of that bank. The system operates on confidence and the FED is hiding the truth in an attempt to maintain confidence in the system. The problem is that hiding the truth leaves the system unworthy of confidence.
And the biggest problem is that there are no checks and balances on what the Fed is doing. It's "put all your trust in one person, who just happens to be someone rotating in and out of Wall Street, and is sure to have his back scratched after scratching others'"
...a response
With such a collusion between moneyed Wall Street interests and government, what can you expect other than intense interest in where 2 trillion dollars of our hard-earned money is going?
This is crazy! Not fair enough for people!
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