Category Archives: financial reform

Dumb and Dumber

18 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Goldman Sachs, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Ron Beasley at Newshoggers has the appropriate image of Senator Mitch McConnell in his post yesterday entitled, “If He Only Had a Brain” :

McConnell continues to mindlessly repeat Frank Luntz talking points about “endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street banks,” talking points written before there was an actual bill. Rachel Maddow compares the similarity, purely coincidental I’m sure, between Luntz’s “words to use” and McConnell’s statements:

Speaking of mindless, there’s McConnell’s sidekick, Congressman John Boner Boehner. After Friday’s news that the SEC was suing Goldman Sachs for fraud, Boner Boehner released a statement, “calling the firm a “key supporter” of the president’s bid to reform the nation’s financial regulatory system.”

“These are very serious charges against a key supporter of President Obama’s bill to create a permanent Wall Street bailout fund,” Boehner said Friday in the statement. “Despite President Obama’s rhetoric, his permanent bailout bill gives Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks a permanent, taxpayer-funded safety net by designating them ‘too big to fail.’ Just whose side is President Obama on?”

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

“To hear the dim-witted Minority Leader put it, the Obama administration and Goldman Sachs are close allies, and the administration-backed reform bill is intended to help firms like Goldman Sachs. And we now know for sure that administration officials are carrying water for Goldman Sachs because … they just charged Goldman Sachs with fraud.

What?

I’m trying to imagine the conversation in Boehner’s office when the statement was being written. Which genius on Boehner’s staff discovered that the Obama administration is going after Goldman Sachs, regardless of its campaign contributions to Obama, and thought, “A ha! Now we’ve got ’em!“

I would guess that genius was the Orangeman himself.

Whatever It Is, They’re Against It

17 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking for all 41 Senate Republicans on the prospects for reforming and regulating the financial system:

That was after Susan Collins (R-ME) became the 41st signature on McConnell’s letter to Harry Reid which reads:

“We are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee. As currently constructed, this bill allows for endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and establishes new and unlimited regulatory powers that will stifle small businesses and community banks.”

All words straight out of a Frank Luntz memo, telling Republicans how to maintain the status quo while sounding like they are in favor of reform. In other words, just repeat the Luntz-inspired tactics from the health care debate, with “endless taxpayer bailouts” replacing “death panels” as the lie du jour. And a lie is exactly what it is. What will guarantee “endless taxpayer bailouts” is doing nothing. The proposed reform calls for applying the same process to the “too big to fail” institutions that the FDIC uses every day for dealing with banks that become insolvent.

Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, and whose word I’ll take over McConnell’s 8 days a week, said as much in an interview published at American Banker on Thursday:

Would this bill perpetuate bailouts?
SHEILA BAIR: The status quo is bailouts. That’s what we have now. If you don’t do anything, you are going to keep having bailouts.

But does this bill stop them from happening?
BAIR: It makes them impossible and it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The construct is you can’t bail out an individual institution – you just can’t do it.

If this had been law prior to 2008, would we have seen the bailouts that took place?
BAIR: No. You could not do an AIG, Bear Stearns, or any of that…This bill would only allow system-wide liquidity support which could not be targeted at an individual firm. You can’t do capital investments at all, period. It’s only liquidity support. No more capital investments. That’s banned under all circumstances.

Do you see any way left for the government to bail out a financial institution?
BAIR: No, and that’s the whole idea. It was too easy for institutions to come and ask for help. They aren’t going to do that. This gives us a response: “Fine, we will take all these essential services and put them in a bridge bank. We will keep them running while your shareholders and debtors take all your losses. And oh, by the way, we are getting rid of your board and you, too.”

Here’s all you need to know about the dishonesty of Senate Republicans. One provision of the bill is for a $50 billion fund to dismantle the “too big to fail” banks. The fund is made up entirely of money which comes from the big banks, not one thin dime from the taxpayers. Republicans want this provision removed. But even if it goes, will they support the remainder of the legislation? I think you can guess the answer:

“McConnell suggested it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Republicans.

“I appreciate the Obama administrations recognition of the need to substantively improve this bill,” McConnell said. “And I hope we can work with them to close the remaining bailout loopholes that put American taxpayers on the hook for financial institutions that become too big to fail.”

Oh by the way, how did the $50 billion get into the legislation to begin with? It was the result of negotiations between Banking Committee members Mark Warner (D-VA) and Bob Corker (R-TN). Needless to say, Corker now opposes the fund he negotiated to include.

Whatever it is, they’re against it.

Jail the Banksters!

14 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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The recent revelations about the goings-on at Washington Mutual bring back an old question about our friends the banksters. When is somebody going to jail? How about just charged and indicted? Something.

“Officials at the failed banking operations of Washington Mutual Inc. securitized substantial volumes of risky, fraudulent loans in the run-up to the financial meltdown despite repeated internal warning signs, according to a Senate probe.

The subcommittee has obtained documents showing that “at a critical point Washington Mutual included loans in its securities because they were likely to suffer a high rate of default, and they failed to disclose that to the buyers,” Sen. Levin said. “They also allowed loans that had been identified as fraudulent to be sold to buyers, again without alerting buyers when the fraud was discovered.”

Isn’t fraud a crime? Why are these executives testifying before Congress and not in a court of law? But then again, where else but the Wall Street bizarro world is this possible ?:

“March 26 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

A government list of previously unidentified “co- conspirators” contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.’s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24.

…None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing.”

Or what about this at Lehman Brothers?

“In the years before its collapse, Lehman used a small company — its “alter ego,” in the words of a former Lehman trader — to shift investments off its books.

The firm, called Hudson Castle, played a crucial, behind-the-scenes role at Lehman, according to an internal Lehman document and interviews with former employees. The relationship raises new questions about the extent to which Lehman obscured its financial condition before it plunged into bankruptcy.”

Isn’t that pretty much what Lay, Skilling, and Fastow were doing at Enron? So why no perp walks yet for the former execs at Lehman?

In the JPMorgan–Jefferson County scam, the crooked politicians went to jail, the banksters took the money and ran. Somebody say double standard?

Karl Denninger at Market Ticker nails it:

“The only deterrent available is to start throwing the scammers in prison.  All of them.  We can start with the people at WaMu and Lehman, then go down the list and for each and every firm that cooked its balance sheet, nailing them under SarBox  [Sarbanes-Oxley] as well.  While we’re at it jail every bank executive involved in crooked derivatives deals with municipal and state governments, starting with Jefferson County in Alabama.”

Amen.

Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?

12 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in AIG, bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Who says crime doesn’t pay? If you happen to be a bankster or the crook who caused the collapse at AIG which, but for $182 billion courtesy of that never-ending ATM known as the American taxpayer, nearly led to the meltdown of our entire financial system, it pays like a Las Vegas slot machine. Consider the cases of Charles Prince, former Citigroup CEO, and Joseph Cassano, former head of AIG’s Financial Products Unit.

At last week’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings Prince expressed his regret:

“I’m sorry that the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact on our country. I’m sorry for the millions of people, average Americans, who have lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others, could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.”

But not sorry enough to give back any of his ill-gotten gain from 2007 (emphasis added) :

“Prince, arguably the person most responsible for Citigroup’s enormous problems, can expect at least a $12.5 million cash bonus, compared with last year’s cash payout of $13.8 million.

And as he awaits his official retirement next month, Prince can rest assured that he will leave with $68 million, including his salary and accumulated stockholdings; a $1.7 million pension; an office, car and driver for up to five years — all in addition to the bonus. That is on top of $53.1 million he has taken home in the last four years, a period when $64 billion in the company’s market value has evaporated.”

However, Mr. Prince is a pauper compared to the HCIC (head crook in charge) at AIG, Joseph Cassano:

“Joseph Cassano was the head of AIG’s Financial Products Unit. They are the ones that made about a trillion dollars worth of bets in credit default swaps. They lost.

So, what happened to Cassano? This was all his idea and his team that brought on this colossal collapse. Well, he was fired! Great, justice served…Oh, did I forget to mention one thing? He received $35 million in bonuses when he was let go.”

…When they lost the bets, their company was devastated. Completely and utterly bankrput. The failure was so large, it promised to drag down the rest of the global economy with it. This forced the government to step in and cover their losses. So far, the United States taxpayers have put in $182 billion to keep AIG afloat.

That 35 mil was only tip money for Cassano:

“How much did he make for himself from 2000 to 2008 by gambling with the company’s money? Only $280 million…In the end, he walked away with over $315 million for destroying the company and maybe the whole economy.”

All that and no accountability required:

“This week the Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors will likely not charge him with fraud. They are not going to try for clawbacks to get some of the money back. In the end, he gets away scott-free. But it’s better than free, he gets to keep all the money he never really made in the first place…”

The best way to rob a bank is to become a banker.

Dylan Ratigan on “The Great Con Job”

08 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, Wall Street

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Dylan Ratigan and Alan Grayson yesterday on MSNBC detail The Great Con Job, and the perpetrators of the con; the unholy alliance of the banksters, the Federal Reserve, and our alleged representatives in Washington, D.C. From Zero Hedge:

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Alan Greenspan and the “Everybody Missed It” Myth

05 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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On ABC’s This Week yesterday former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan once again pulled out the “nobody saw it coming” excuse for missing the conditions which led to the financial meltdown in 2008:

“…the reason it was missed is we have had no experience of the type of risks that arose following the default of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.That’s the critical mistake. And I made it. Everybody that I know who works in this business made it.”

False on many fronts. First, the “no experience” myth. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was predictable, or should have been, by the failure of Long Term Capital Management in 1998 because both were brought about by similar business practices. Both had debt that far exceeded their assets and both were major players in the mortgage backed securities “shadow market.”

The other thing that “everyone” missed, according to Greenspan and his fellow revisionists anyway, and what was driving the mortgage backed securities explosion, was the housing bubble. Again false. Economists from Paul Krugman on the left to Reagan administration Treasury Department official Bruce Bartlett on the right were warning of the impending disaster in the housing market.

But putting aside economists for a minute, it shouldn’t have taken a Nobel Prize in economics to see that a 50% increase in home prices from 1995-2005 was unsustainable. Or that giving a $500,000 loan to someone with no documented income was not a good idea. Or that adjustable rate mortgages, 100% financing, interest-only loans, and all the other exotic mortgage variations were an accident looking for a time to happen. What was Greenspan saying at the time?

“Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday that Americans’ preference for long-term, fixed-rate mortgages means many are paying more than necessary for their homes and suggested consumers would benefit if lenders offered more alternatives…He said a Fed study suggested many homeowners could have saved tens of thousands of dollars in the last decade if they had ARMs.”

No, Mr. Greenspan, not “everybody” missed it. YOU missed it. You and the disciples of the group-think mentality in Washington who were afraid to buck you because of your position as the alleged “Maestro” and “Wizard” who was responsible for the supposedly booming economy which was in reality a house of cards. Unfortunately two of those disciples, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, are still in decision-making positions.

Just as a side note, there could be some fireworks at the Financial Crisis Commission hearings this week. Greenspan is set to testify on Wednesday and Don Robert Rubin-leone is up on Thursday.

Financial Crisis Round-Up

04 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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The constraints of time, due in large part to my newly-arrived copy of 13 Bankers, doesn’t allow extensive commentary on any of these posts from around the financial blogosphere, but all are deserving of a closer look:

Speaking of 13 Bankers, co-author Simon Johnson has a piece at Baseline Scenario on how a combination of political savvy and public relations acumen make JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon “The Most Dangerous Man in America.”

Mike Whitney’s “Timothy Geithner is a Sniveling Scamster” at The Market Oracle describes how President Obama’s new mortgage modification program is “just another stealth bailout” for the banksters.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge comments on  Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig’s extensive interview with Shahien Narisirpour of the Huffington Post.

Robert Reich’s “The Fed in Hot Water” on the belated admission of its taking tens of millions of bad loans off Bear Stearn’s books in order to facilitate their takeover by JPMorgan Chase.

Susan P. Koniak, George M. Cohen, David A. Dana and Thomas Ross in a New York Times op-ed entitled “How Washington Abetted the Bank Job” on the D.C buck-passing in regards to the regulators who were either incompetent or complicit (I choose the latter) in the Lehman Brothers Enron-like bookkeeping scam.

Speaking of inept, incompetent, or complicit so-called regulators, a McClatchy article asks, “Where was Moody’s board when top-rated bonds blew up?”

Herbert Lash at Reuters on the “Wall Street cabal” blocking derivative reform.

Finally, Rick Berman at Politico on the “Debt Disaster Dead Ahead.”

Channeling TR

03 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Obama, Politics, too big to fail

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Simon Johnson and James Kwak at the Washington Post (emphasis added) :

“In late February 1902, J.P. Morgan, the leading financier of his day, went to the White House to meet with President Theodore Roosevelt and Attorney General Philander Knox. The government had just announced an antitrust suit — the first of its kind — against Morgan’s recently formed railroad monopoly, Northern Securities, and this was a tense moment for the stock market. Morgan argued strongly that his industrial trusts were essential to American prosperity and competitiveness.

The banker wanted a deal. “If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up,” he offered. But the president was blunt: “That can’t be done.” And Knox succinctly summarized Roosevelt’s philosophy. “We don’t want to fix it up,” he told Morgan, “we want to stop it.”

[…]

Roosevelt did not launch the antitrust movement by gently tugging on some low-hanging fruit. He took on J.P. Morgan, the central figure in the burgeoning American financial system, and he won…And after many twists and turns, the new consensus regarding acceptable business practices led to the breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil — arguably the most powerful company in U.S. history to that date.

[…]

Will the [Obama] administration stand up and fight now, before we have another crisis? Surely this is what Theodore Roosevelt would have done. He liked to act preemptively; when he saw excessive power, he took it on, creating his own moments of political opportunity.”

President Obama–this is your moment, now is the time. We need another TR.

Quote of the Day: Simon Johnson

03 Saturday Apr 2010

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Simon Johnson, MIT professor, Huffington Post contributor, co-founder of Baseline Scenario, and author of the new book 13 Bankers, on why it is imperative that “Too Big To Fail” becomes a thing of the past:

“You can’t have a  market economy if some people have get out of jail free cards.”Vodpod videos no longer available.

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The Case of JPMorgan and Jefferson County, Alabama

02 Friday Apr 2010

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In a March 26 letter to shareholders Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, wrote:

“The crisis of the past couple of years has had far-reaching consequences, among them the declining public image of banks and bankers…[W]hen we vilify whole industries…we are denigrating ourselves and much of what made this country successful…We also should refrain from indiscriminate blame of any whole group of people…While JPMorgan Chase certainly made its share of mistakes in this tumultuous time, our firm always has remained focused on the fundamentals of banking and the part we can play to support our clients and communities.”

One example of JPMorgan’s “support” for their “clients and communities” and a reason for the “declining public image of banks and bankers” can be found in another in a long line of excellent pieces by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone, entitled “Looting Main Street: How the nation’s biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece”

The article is lengthy, but a must-read, in my opinion. It’s the story of bribery, corruption, and fraud in Jefferson County, Alabama. Briefly (or maybe not so briefly), it goes like this.

In the early 90’s the EPA sued the county in order to bring its antiquated sewer system into compliance with the Clean Water Act. In 1996 county commissioners decided to build the “Taj Mahal of sewage treatment plants” with cost estimates of $250 million. Taibbi:

“But in a wondrous demonstration of the possibilities of small-town graft and contract-padding, the price tag quickly swelled to more than $3 billion. County commissioners were literally pocketing wads of cash from builders and engineers and other contractors eager to get in on the project, while the county was forced to borrow obscene sums to pay for the rapidly spiraling costs.”

Originally the plan was to pay for the project by increasing sewer rates. But as costs continued to escalate county commissioners knew that sooner or later customers would revolt over the ever-increasing rates, so they started looking for “creative financing.” That’s music to the banksters ears and, true to form, they came riding to the rescue with their gobbledegook of variable rate refinancing and “swaps.”

Here’s where local JPMorgan rep Charles LeCroy meets crooked politician, with local “wheeler-dealer” Bill Blount as the middle man:

“LeCroy paid Blount millions of dollars, and Blount turned around and used the money to buy lavish gifts for his close friend Larry Langford, who at the time had just been elected president of the county commission…Langford then signed off on one after another of the deadly swap deals being pushed by LeCroy. Every time the county refinanced its sewer debt, JP Morgan made millions of dollars in fees.

Even more lucrative, each of the swap contracts contained clauses that mandated all sorts of penalties and payments in the event that something went wrong with the deal. In the mortgage business, this process is known as churning: You keep coming back over and over to refinance, and they keep “churning” you for more and more fees.”

But unbeknownst to LeCroy, Blount had a another suitor, Goldman Sachs. So:

“JP Morgan cut a separate deal with Goldman, paying the bank $3 million to [go away], with Blount taking a $300,000 cut of the side deal.”

The payoff for JPMorgan?:

“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 [lousy] 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.”

As happens  sooner or later with all Wall Street scams, the whole thing collapsed in early 2008. And as also happens with Wall Street scams, the banksters got the gold mine and the taxpayers of Jefferson County got the shaft.

But don’t think this is an isolated incident. Taibbi concludes:

“The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens. These guys aren’t number-crunching whizzes making smart investments; what they do is find suckers in some municipal-finance department, corner them in complex lose-lose deals and flay them alive. In a complete subversion of free-market principles, they take no risk, score deals based on political influence rather than competition, keep consumers in the dark — and walk away with big money.”

Any questions about that “declining public image” of banks and bankers, Mr. Dimon?