Be sure to check out my video for today. It’s not posted yet. Hmm …
Anyway, here’s the best story of the day …
The Top 10 Signs You are Living in a Banana Republic and My Favorite $100 Billion Omlet
My favorite part …
3. William Black, the former Chief Fraud Investigator at the Federal Home Lending Bank and Office of Thrift Supervision during the Savings and Loan scandal, calls the current bank stress tests ” A COMLETE SHAM.” The FHLB is a very big institution, with $1.3 trillion (with a T) in loans, and its Chief Fraud Investigator during the S&L scandal, says a pillar of Federal banking reform policy is “a complete sham.” A complete sham. In addition to comparing the stress tests of our nations’ financial system to a counterfeit, fraud, flimflam, ruse (is that emphatic enough for you America, or do I need naked women shooting you with lasers to make you pay attention? I know, I do. Can we get some graphics of naked ladies in here, please?) Mr. Black also called the stress test “a Potemkin model. Built to fool people.” Like many others, Black believes the “worst case scenario” used in the stress test don’t go far enough. Black also said, “There is no real purpose [of the stress test] other than to fool us. To make us chumps,” Black says. Noting policymakers have long stated the problem is a lack of confidence, Black says Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is now essentially saying: “’If we lie and they believe us, all will be well.’ It’s Orwellian.” “The fact bank stocks have been rising since Geithner unveiled his plan is “bad news for taxpayers,” he says. “It’s the subsidy of all history.”
Just go read the whole thing. NOW!
Obama’s Top Economic Adviser is Greedy and Highly Compromised
Among the payoffs Larry Summers received: $45K from Merrill Lynch days before he joined Obama’s team. And it gets worse.
Robert Reich: Why We’re Not at the Beginning of the End, and Probably Not Even At the End of the Beginning
All of these pieces of upbeat news are connected by one fact: the flood of money the Fed has been releasing into the economy. Of course mortage rates are declining, mortgage orginations are surging, and people and companies are borrowing more. So much money is sloshing around the economy that its price is bound to drop. And cheap money is bound to induce some borrowing. The real question is whether this means an economic turnaround. The answer is it doesn’t.
The ‘Disaster Stage’ of U.S. Financialization
“This is a much grander-scale disaster than anything that happened in 1929-33. Worse, it dwarfs the abuses of debt, finance and financialization that brought down previous leading world economic powers like Britain and Holland…
But for the moment, let me underscore: the average American knows little of the dimensions of the financial sector aggrandizement and misbehavior involved. Until this is remedied, there probably will not be enough informed, focused indignation to achieve far-reaching reform in the teeth of financial sector money and influence. Equivocation will triumph. This will not displease politicians and regulators leery of offending their contributors and backers.”
XX Sean’s note — here’s a story from 2008 that’s worth reading today, because many of the problems it outlined have come to pass …
Overnight, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve have radically changed the character of American capitalism. It is nothing less than a coup d’êtat for the class that FDR called “banksters.” What has happened in the past two weeks threatens to change the coming century – irreversibly, if they can get away with it. This is the largest and most inequitable transfer of wealth since the land giveaways to the railroad barons during the Civil War era.
Geithner’s Dirty Little Secret
At the time Summers was busy opening the floodgates of financial abuse for the Wall Street Money Trust, his assistant was none other than Tim Geithner, the man who today is US Treasury Secretary, while Geithner’s old boss, the self-same Summers, is President Obama’s chief economic adviser as head of the White House Economic Council. To have Geithner and Summers responsible for cleaning up the financial mess is tantamount to putting the proverbial fox in to guard the henhouse.
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- 4 Energy Stories for Monday (10/19/09)
- 7 Stories for Saturday (10/24/09)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Thanks, Stacey!