There's More Than One Way To Protect A Country
By Susie Madrak Thursday Jan 29, 2009 1:00pmSo apparently George Bush could have done something to prevent the present economic crisis, but was so obsessed with terrorism, he couldn't see the forest for the proverbial trees. (Or, less kindly, he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.)
The FBI was aware for years of "pervasive and growing" fraud in the mortgage industry that eventually contributed to America's financial meltdown, but did not take definitive action to stop it.
"It is clear that we had good intelligence on the mortgage-fraud schemes, the corrupt attorneys, the corrupt appraisers, the insider schemes," said a recently retired, high FBI official. Another retired top FBI official confirmed that such intelligence went back to 2002.
The problem, according to the two FBI retirees and several other current and former bureau colleagues, is that the bureau was stretched so thin that no one noticed when those lenders began packaging bad mortgages into bad securities.
"We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt," the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. "Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."
The FBI not only lacked the resources, but also never got the tips it needed from the banking regulatory agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also failed to detect the securities issue, said the first retired FBI official.
"These are very resource-intense cases that take a lot of work by very skilled people," said John Falvey Jr., a former federal prosecutor who currently does white-collar criminal defense work in Boston.
And Falvey said that financial executives who deliberately chose not to learn the facts about dicey mortgage-lending practices in their companies -- who chose to be "willfully blind" to such practices and the subsequent securitization of those mortgages -- could be vulnerable to prosecution for securities fraud.
Both retired FBI officials asserted that the Bush administration was thoroughly briefed on the mortgage fraud crisis and its potential to cascade out of control with devastating financial consequences, but made the decision not to give back to the FBI the agents it needed to address the problem. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, about 2,400 agents were reassigned to counterterrorism duties.
This mass reassignment was first chronicled by the Seattle P-I in the Terrorism Tradeoff, a series of investigative reports beginning in 2007 and stretching into 2008. That administration policy, the P-I reported, resulted in a dramatic plunge in FBI criminal investigations and referrals for prosecution. And recent data from Syracuse University researchers shows the problem has worsened.
Login or Register to post comments.
Trojans?
Durex?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJvbmxYoaI
Like giving the Gitmo detainees fair trials.
http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2009/01/blow-...
After curt's video, that the titles of Ruth's would be
"A Blow to Justice"
Sorry, it was just too much for me. Retrieving mind now ...
glad you enjoyed the contrast.
just looked up your name. very cool.
Mucho Gusto, Hechicera.
Sure. Give Al Qaeda Dumbya, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Libby, Rush the junkie rapist, Blotchy Bigot Billy, the angry chubby girl Hannity, that ugly dude Coulter, et al.
Just like 9/11, they saw it coming and let it happen.
their friends benefitted.
I have no doubt they have walked away with a trillion dollars.
a couple trillion, as announced by Rumsfeld on 9-10-01.
2-3 trillion missing from the Pentagon.
but how dare you think that people in the government would do anything nefarious. how dare you!!!
the ultra-rich. thus we get madoff and the recent spate of sub-billion-dollar ponzi schemes.
The FBI would have investigated it if they had been told to, but under the Bush "Justice" Department it was more important to play politics with our nation's law enforcement. And they sure as hell weren't going to rock the boat while the corporations they answer to were making money hand over fist. Ask Elliot Spitzer what he thinks.
This is from the same bunch who bailed out the savings and loans in the 80's. And much of this is happening for the same reasons.
It's time for people to get serious about cleaning up this mess. I don't know that this is much discussed, but I know a lot of "normal" people who are not spending, not only because they can't afford to, but because they are wary of any kind of loans or investments. A lot of the consumer confidence problems are related to lack of confidence in the powers that be. Very few people who are middle class or below, have any confidence in corporate America, or our Government, to do the right thing.
Hey. I just remembered Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, look what he did after his position.
From wikipedia
"In September 2001, Freeh was appointed to the board of directors of credit card issuer MBNA; he also served as the bank's general counsel, as well as corporate secretary and ethics officer."
I thought that was strange back then, but now it makes more sense. FBI is in bed with the banks. How can they investigate them when their former director is providing the industry consulting and legal counsel?
Do you think that would have ANY effect on the FBI's willingness to do their job?
I think that sounds kinda like what the PPT (Plunge Protection Team) does? Insider knowledge is often beneficial...
It is a huge conflict of interest when you think about it. If bank fraud is in the FBI's jurisdiction, then Freeh can provide confidential information about the methods the FBI uses and how not to get detected.
As well as the former director's presence in the industry being an intimidating factor towards investigators.
I believe they had every intention to drop this in the lap of the Democrats. Billions for defense, Billions for the oil industry, Billions for the Banking industry/Wall Street.
Mission Accomplished.
Their inside heist man Hank Paulson pulled the last heist off in the last few months of the Bush administration
Mission Accomplished.
During the next four years we will witness the Republicans attempting to leave it all in the laps of the Democrats
Muslim Extremists!!!
I rest my case.
This doesn't surprise me. I had a feeling there was another approach, but chimpy was too ignorant to see it.
Criminals, Every freakin one of them.
Can just pass the ball on down the line in the years ahead, unless it goes flat. It's kinda like musical chairs I believe?
PS. Whose playing the music, is what I'd like to know...
It was all because of GREED.
And of course, they thought property values would keep going up.
The originators knew the loans were bad.
Because of the enormous pool of worldwide money buying all of the CDOs the investment banks could proffer, the demand down the chain was tremendous. The originators could sell all of the loans they made, the only problem was finding enough people to buy in, they weren't enough with good credit, so they kept dropping the standards.
There were the so called: No doc loans, Liar loans, NINA loans, NINJA loans.
Until there were no standards, NINJA loans.
NINJA, No Income, No Job, No Assets = NO PROBLEM, loan approved.
Appraisers were pressured to pump up the appraisals. More fees for everyone.
The brokers would shop the finished deals around to find someone up the chain greedy enough to go along. Then the rest were on board.
The Rating Agencies knew, they had reason to have known, it was their business, but because of conflicts of interest, they let their over ratings ride.
The Investment banks should have known, it is called due diligence. They sold them to world no matter what.
Except for the actual investors holding the securities themselves, anyone who bought Credit Default Swaps must have known. Why make such a bet if you didn't know it would pay off big.
There is $15 trillion more CDS in the pipelines set to blow up with the next wave of defaults.
Many major Financial Services had a CDS desk. Why would they sell what was essentially a short position on their own products? Because the demand was so great they could sell more than was available. More than even the tremendous funny business going on below them in the chain could provide. So many would create synthetic CDOs based on the Swaps, junk rated as AAA. They had a license to steal.
Lots of people knew.
People knew that they could buy off the Corporate Trained Seals in our corrupt congress to bail them out if they REALLY got into deep doo doo.
They were right.
BoobyG: Tranche Warfare
sounds remarkably like what happened at ENRON.
The Shock Doctrine ~ By Naomi Klein
Then you know better than to assume incompetence. Start using the noggin and thinking like a player instead of a victim. It's time to play.
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.. Are we going to rise the Challenge???
Problem - Reaction - Solution needs to be openly confronted and defeated.
in any responsible government/military/corporate/judicial/police position been fired for incompetence or criminal behavior since 9/11 in the US? If no, then who unilaterally redefined the criteria that would warrant such action? Is the fascist, corporatist failed elite so powerful that they can toss up smokescreens and Oprah/new age/post-modernist bullshit to keep everyone, including the teeming unwashed, from applying the laws of the land??
#1 You ever stop and think that a village that does not produce anything does not deserve to be prosperous.
#2 You ever stop and think that no amount of debt staacking can indefinately compensate for number 1 above.
#3 It really looks to me like the bigger picture here is that Globalism is a FAILED economic model.
I don't hold all the answers to how to fix this; but, a good place to start is by rebuilding that factory that used to be in your hometown.
I don't think we have a lot of time to fix this. I am afraid that this economic stimulus plan is going to consume the precious little amount of time that we have before the REAL collapse comes.
These dipshits (and the ones in Canada too) are so busy playing politics, they don't have the brains to even attempt to fix anything. Too busy playing partisan BS, let's look like the good guys for the next election. Toss lotsa cash at it. Ooops. Did it not work? Oh well, it's because of that other evil party. They did it!
It is like two fire departments from different towns responding to a house fire. Both watch it burn, then blame the other guys.
Correction to your analogy:
Its like two fire departments secretly setting fire to a house, then responding to it and pretend to put it out.
When incompetence is this bad, its intentional.
better stated. And yet both these parties still have popular support? Incredible.
It was a Ford plant, they sold it to suppliers.
The UAW continued to represent the workers.
The suppliers are getting slaughtered, the plant is vacant.
The UAW hall across the street is for sale.
Mission accomplished.
till the stimulating bill gets signed. The addition of millions for the prevention of STD's will bring those jobs back. Good grief.
Originally, globalism was spoken of in terms of just and equitable distribution of wealth, such that extremes of wealth would be diminished or eliminated along with chronic poverty and need. The original concept, which is still legitimate, was based upon universally applied justice, and specifically, economic justice. Inherent in the original idea was the idea of a necessary redistribution of wealth from the ultra-rich nations and an equitable ditribution of the worlds natural resources, conducted under the auspices of an international authority, such as the UN. Per the original concept, such things are a prerequisite for establishing enduring world peace and universal propserity.
However, the original idea has been quite cynically usurped and corrputed. This process began in earnest during the final stages of World War II, thanks to the efforts of organizations like the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderburgers and, of course, the western banking system. In the latter days of the Nixon administration, Nelson Rockerfeller and Zbigniew Bryzinski, together with help from Henry Kissinger created the Trilateral Commission. Operating under the public pretense of global interdependence of nations, it came up with the plan to divide the world up into threee zones of economic hegemony, the US (North America) Europe and Japan( Aisia), the 3 intended Great Houses of a new world-spanning and controlling economic neofeudalism. The US would get the western hemisphere as its resource and labor pool, Europe would get Africa and Eastern Europe and Japan would get Asia. Energy resources would be split, with the US claiming the lion's share.
The current state of affairs is a reflection of how this band of globalism has grown and evolved in the last 60 years, patterned along the basic ideas of folks like Leo Strauss and others. Every President, the final candidates of both U.S. parties since, and including, Jimmy Carter have been Trilateral Commission picks, and the neocons are a part of that whole picture.
Collectively, they have taken an idea that had merit, and turned it into an obscenity. And instead of building a pathway to enduring peace and justice, they have turned the term globalism into an obscenity that is a broad spectrumed study in injustice and peace destroying concepts. The crooks and despot-wannabes are in charge, but the basis of the global system they are working for is inherently self-defeating. The global economic meltdown is a consequence of the policies and agenda that these "globalists" are working for. It will eventually fail...is failing...but will, in the meantime, bring hard consequences for all the peoples of the world. Eventually, the right things will replace this current dark experiment and the bad guys will be displaced - discredited and held in rightful contempt. A more just system is destined, because nothing else will work. Modern civilization will fail if the current corrupted ideologies are allowed to come to their full fruition. If you want to see the final logical outcome of where the policies and ideology-born "principles" that created this mess lead, look at failed states like Somalia or Zimbabwe. They are places where all the "ideals" have been allowed to operate without restraints. I don't think that this is going to be allowed to happen on a broader scale, because even though the bad guys currently control the cash and the resources, they don't control the numbers..the people of the world. Eventually the people are going to have had enough. In a way, that's what the 2008 elections were about in this country and it's why the neocons and GOPers are now gearing up for all out ideological and cultural war. It's the beginning of the end for them and their dark dreams. They will obstruct and corrupt to the utmost of their ability and resources. In the long term, it will do them no good. When things get bad enough, people of good will always arise to set things aright.
The immediate future looks dark, even bleak, but the longer term looks better. Self-defeating things always defeat themselves. The point is, you may not know what to do in a specific circumstance, but in general, if people always work for justice, they are also working for the greatest good as pertains to economic well-being and peace.
although I hope you are wrong about 911, I definitely agree with you on this. George Bush was not dumb at all. He wanted to make government small enough to drown in the bathtub, and he may have succeeded. Hopefully, Obama and team can pull it out.
what if we are not wrong about 9-11? then what do you think about the situation we are in?
not much worse or better-one way or the other.
I guarantee this story will be immediately dismissed by 90% of the right because it comes from the Seattle PI.
.
For the Bush Administration, this all comes down to one word to describe what was lacking all along...
... INTELLIGENCE!
Enron...
9/11...
Katrina...
Iraq...
WMDs...
Banks...
OBL...
... Nope, none hiding here!
.
if you want to, read the following statements and ask yourself how it was applied for or by the GOP to 'lead' us to where we are today.
1. What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.
2. It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.
3. By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
4. All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
5. Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
6. Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.
All the quotes are from Adolf Hitler. It seems everything hitler did or said was studied by bush henchman and used for the past 8 years.
Rove is a Nazi lover.
Bush's grandfather was a Nazi Lover.
Cheney has shown every evidence of being a Nazi, as has Rummy.
What makes anyone think that these guys are just Neo-Nazis who have been "cleaned up" to be palatable to the masses?
It is just hiding in plain sight. Call yourself something different...like say..Neo-Con.
Calling something by it's correct name, like Fascist, is not just empty rhetoric. I have been advocating for years that we educate people as to exactly what the word FASCIST means, and who it is applied in real life terms.
Fascist is not a word to toss around lightly, like a racial epitaph, or a curse word. Fascism is a real thing that has real life consequences for the all of us.
Neo-conservatism is just a rebranding of Fascism. It really is that simple.
At this point the conspiracy theory that Bush and co. was behind 9/11 could be proven true and I wouldn't bat an eye lash. They ran this country into the ground, and Have no shame about using those policies again to make anything Obama does ineffective.
"The FBI not only lacked the resources, but also never got the tips it needed from the banking regulatory agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also failed to detect the securities issue, said the first retired FBI official."
It's not a mere matter of having failed to detect criminality and abuses; it goes far beyond that level. Bush ordered that the Office of the Comptroller of Currency actively became engaged in thwarting attempts to uphold consumer protection laws in all 50 states that could have prevented a good portion of this mess. In effect, he ordered that agency to become complicit coconspirators and accessories after the fact. This is what Elliot Spitzer was working exposing on when he was busted, thanks to some conveniently timed leaks, for using that prostitute. The directers/leaders of the OCC are criminally cuplable in this mess , as is Bush for directing them to participate in criminal activities.
Login or Register to post comments.