09 Saturday Oct 2010
Posted in Congress, economy, Financial Crisis, Politics, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street
Tags
Congressman Alan Grayson explaining what is becoming known as Foreclosuregate. And if you think it just affects people who aren’t making their mortgage payments, think again. It concerns everyone:
“We are approaching a point where the easiest way to make a buck is to steal it.”
No, we’re already there. We have been and we will be until the perpetrators, and those who aid and abet this “factory of fraud,” (including our elected representatives) are behind bars.
06 Thursday May 2010
I’ve been considering relocating from Texas to the Sunshine State, since it looks like we may be in for another 4 years of Secessionist Rick here. Alan Grayson’s latest shot across the bow of the U.S.S Turbo Timmy might be enough to tip the scales. From Zero Hedge:
“In today’s ABC Top Line, Alan noted, “when Tim Geithner says that he doesn’t want to see the Fed audited, what he’s really saying is he doesn’t want to see Tim Geithner audited…”
“He was the head of the New York Fed for years and years. This audit would apply to him. And the actions he took — which he can now take in secret and, when this bill passes, will no longer be secret — we’ll be able to see and understand the decisions that he made that among other things put huge amounts of bailout money into the hands of private interests.” Grayson added: “It’s one of the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen.”
[…]
“The Fed doesn’t want to be audited. Who does? Do you want to be audited? I don’t want to be audited, but sometimes it’s necessary,” he said. “When you’re handing out a trillion dollars at a time — a trillion dollars at a time, which works out to $3,000 for every man woman and child in this country — don’t we have a right to know what happened to it?”
“It’s central to the bill. We’ve had secret bailouts from the Fed to private interests now for the past two years without any exposure whatsoever. … We need to know what happened to our money, because when the Fed hands out our money, every dollar in your pocket, every dollar in your checking account, every dollar in your 401(k) becomes that much cheaper and less in value.”
Dialing 1-800-MOVERS.
29 Thursday Apr 2010
Posted in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street
Tags
Alan Grayson, audit, Bernie Sanders, Federal Reserve, GAO, Ron Paul, TARP
…at least on the need to audit the Fed:
“As unusual a coalition as can be crafted in the Senate plans to fight for an amendment to the Wall Street reform bill that would open the Federal Reserve to a serious audit by the Government Accountability Office. Sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the language is modeled after an amendment that passed the House, sponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas).
Sanders is joined by four Republicans of varying politics: John McCain (Ariz.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), David Vitter (La.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.). If Democrats in the Senate back the measure, it would have at least 63 votes…The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), is also a cosponsor, as is Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.).”
A letter by Sen. Sanders reads, in part:
“The American people have a right to know who received over $2 Trillion in financial assistance from the Federal Reserve.
Since the beginning of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has provided over $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans and other financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the world. Unfortunately, the Fed is still refusing to tell the American people or the Congress who received most of this assistance, how much they received or what they are doing with this money. This money does not belong to the Federal Reserve, it belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where their taxpayer dollars are going.
[…]
While the Senate financial reform bill attempts to address the lack of transparency at the Fed, as currently drafted, much of the information regarding the details of who received this financial assistance could be kept secret forever.
As long as the Federal Reserve is allowed to keep the information on their loans secret, we may never know the true financial condition of the banking system. The lack of transparency at the Fed could lead to an even bigger crisis in the future.
[…]
For nearly nine decades, the GAO has a proven track record of conducting objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, non-ideological, fair, and balanced audits. Through these audits, the GAO helped save the American taxpayers $50 billion last year alone by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
Let’s not equate independence with secrecy. We cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer. There is simply too much money at stake.”
Hear, hear.
08 Thursday Apr 2010
Posted in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, Wall Street
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:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
09 Tuesday Mar 2010
Posted in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, Obama, Politics, Wall Street
Tags
Alan Grayson, audit, Federal Reserve, GAO, President Obama, Tim Geithner, Treasury Department, Wall Street
“The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday.”
And how’s this for openness, transparency, and accountability?
“Secretary Tim Geithner, Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger and Gene Sperling, a counselor to the secretary, held a briefing Monday with new media reporters and financial bloggers during which they discussed the Fed audit and other topics. Under the briefing’s ground rules, the officials could be paraphrased but not quoted, and the paraphrase could not be connected to a specific official.”
Alan Grayson isn’t buying it:
“Rep. Grayson said he finds Treasury’s opposition to the audit troubling. “There is a growing feeling on the part of real Democrats that the president is getting bad advice from people who have sold out to Wall Street,” said Grayson.”
I’ll go one step further. The president is among those who have sold out to Wall Street, in my opinion.
06 Monday Apr 2009
Tags
AIG, Alan Grayson, bailout, Blue Dog, Citigroup, Elizabeth Warren, Larry Summers, loopholes, Melissa Bean, Obama administration, restrictions, Wall Street, Washington
There are both encouraging and discouraging signs today in the battle over who’s in charge, Wall Street or Washington. First the good news. Finally, somebody in D.C. gets it.
“Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America’s $700 billion bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds in a damning report that will question the administration’s approach to saving the financial system from collapse.
She declined to give more detail but confirmed that she would refer to insurance group AIG, which has received $173 billion in bailout money, and banking giant Citigroup, which has had $45 billion in funds and more than $316 billion of loan guarantees.”
With one simple sentence Warren summed up what, in my opinion, should be the consensus among those in the Obama administration.
“The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous.”
That’s the good news, now for the bad. There are some “administration officials”( I smell Larry Summers) who are busy looking for loopholes in congressional restrictions placed on financial institutions who receive bailout money.
“The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefitting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.
Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.”
“Persuading”, aka bribing.
“The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.”
“Special entities” acting as “middlemen”, aka money launderers.
Speaking of limiting executive pay, Rep. Alan Grayson’s Pay for Performance Act, which does exactly that, passed the House 247-171, with 10 Republicans voting yes.
But there’s rain on that parade, too. Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois, one of the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, sponsored an amendment which would “allow institutions that enter into a payment schedule with Treasury on terms set by Treasury to no longer be subject to the bonus and compensation restrictions created by the Act.“
It passed 228-198 with the support of 63 Democrats, most of whom also voted for Grayson’s bill. Go figure.
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