The Fed has finally came clean. It now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns – taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank’s bad loans – in order to smooth Bear Stearns’ takeover by JPMorgan Chase. The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayer dollars bailing out the banks, even months before Lehman Brothers collapsed. The Fed also took on billions of dollars worth of AIG securities, also before the official government-sanctioned bailout.
As Reich points out, we have an un-elected, nearly unaccountable organization choosing winners and losers in our “capitalist” system. Keep in mind this happened in 2008, while George W. Bush was still president and Hank Paulson was Secretary of the Treasury. Ben Bernanke is still chairman of the Federal Reserve itself, and Tim Geithner, who was New York Fed chair when this “bailout” occurred, is now ensconced at Treasury. As always, Reich’s post is very much worth reading.
There were not any Tea People in late 2008, and it seems to be forgotten that the use of the Boston Tea Party as a symbol was first thrown out by CNBC hack Rick Santelli in a a possibly pre-planned and infamous rant in early 2009. Now that we know the Fed was operating as an unelected shadow government, the specter of Santelli yelling about not wanting to pay the mortgages of “losers” is even more insidious.
Divide and conquer is a very old concept, and that’s what is happening to this country. I can’t help but think that as the Tea People bitch and moan about a health care reform law that holds the promise of modest but very real improvements in things like pre-existing conditions bans and such, they are missing the actual economic tyranny that is so clear to anyone who chooses to look.
Republicans could have participated in the reform process, but instead they decided to lie endlessly and fan popular resentments that should be directed at their benefactors, namely the corporate barons of this country, and re-direct them using classic disinformation techniques like conspiracy theories, racism and anti-intellectualism.
At least with health care reform there will be democratic elections, and if a majority of citizens choose to punish Democrats for enacting the reform, they will do so. Not so with the Fed and the nation’s gigantic financial institutions, who are accountable to nobody but themselves. As long as moral hazard and the picking of winners and losers stands, talk from the Tea People about “free markets” and “smaller government” is nothing but a cruel and absurd joke. They accuse us of wanting socialism, an asinine claim when their puppet masters are running an organized criminal enterprise.
As it turns out, they are the mob. Just not in the way they thought.
“they are missing the actual economic tyranny that is so clear to anyone who chooses to look”
They should quit their jobs and flip stocks. I realized years ago that when economic tyranny pushes down wages and drives up prices, the money has to go somewhere — it doesn’t disappear. CEOs and diretors get a lot of it, but ordinary Americans are exploited so much, there’s still a lot left over for dividends and capital gains. So, I help myself to some of it, figuring if I don’t take it some rich Republican will; and, what the hell, I want to live like a Republican, too.
The upshot of this is that I’ve made about $1,300 this morning — without working for it. So far this year, I’ve made rougly a 30% annualized return on my money, compared to the 1/2% paid by banks on insured savings. Yeah, I know, it’s not nice to profit from the oppression of workers and consumers, and I feel bad about it. But, like I said, if I don’t help myself to the fruits of economic tyranny, someone else with even lower morals than me surely will.
Why am I not surprised? We all knew that two of the biggest corporate benificiaries of the Bush administration, KKR (and it’s subsidiaries) and Blackwater (now called something else), benefited enourmously under the Bush administration’s use of sole-source contracts issued under “emergency” regulations. It stands to reason that this wouldn’t be confined to just Iraq war contracts and Katrinia.
The theft, fraud, and abuse of the U.S. treasury and American taxpayers during the Bush administration is a lot like an onion which is rotting from the inside-out. You can tell by the smell that something is very wrong, but you have to peel your way through many layers to determine the true extent.
@2 “Blackwater (now called something else)”
The bastards are currently hiding behind the name “Xe.” Let’s shine a light on these cockroaches … so you don’t forget, that name again is …
http://www.xecompany.com/
@1 “They should quit their jobs and flip stocks.”
Roger, if you know what’s good for you, you ought to STFU about that.
What do you think would happen if everyone took your advice?
@4
The more the merrier.
Problem is most folks buy when they should be selling, kind of like the housing boom/bust.
@4 “What do you think would happen if everyone took your advice?”
Don’t worry, they won’t. The sheep are piling into bonds. But let’s say they did, then two things would happen:
1) The increased demand would push up stock prices; and
2) I’d sell all my stocks and scoop up the cheap bonds they’re dumping to buy expensive stocks.
Investing is simple, really. We rabbits know the secret. Keep moving, and to find the greenest grass, go where the herd ain’t been yet.
A little more information on the RNC problems, which included a typo in a fundraising letter which sent callers to an “adult” phone line.
1. The letter itself was deceptively packaged to resemble a U.S. Census mailing, which under U.S. law residents are required to participate:
2. Among the other expenses paid by the RNC was 13,000 for “speachwriting” to a company which, perhaps coincidentally, was headed by the daughter of one of the RNC co-chairs.
Again, none of this is really THAT surprising to those of us who have been paying attention to the corruption within the Republican party over the past couple of decades. But what makes the news here is that it demonstrates the extent to which the Republican Party is willing to not only deceive and rob the American voters and taxpayers, but it even extends it’s crime spree to Republican donars themselves.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:
The survival of the Rule of Law is NOT dependent upon people following the laws.
Its survival depends upon the fair and equitable enforcement of the Rule of Law. No one should be above the law, not even the President.
This is where our Founding Fathers gave one of the most important checks on power to the House of Representatives: Articles of Impeachment.
Nancy Pelosi failed as Speaker of the House to allow Articles of Impeachment to be brought to the floor.
It was a calculated political decision, bring Bush to justice and risk the perception of a witch hunt to revenge Clinton and the consequences of the backlash or let it pass and get more Democrats elected to move the country forward.
In the end analysis, we did get a historical legislation passed that will no doubt make us a healthier nation, both physically and financially.
But the price was sacrificing a portion of our national soul and a truly unique American Principle: No one is above the law.
Now, without reservation, George W. Bush and key people in his administration are indeed above the law.
And conservatives are “OK” with it.
Looks like devolution in action to me. From the Party of Lincoln to a party of terrorists, the downward spiral is clear to see.
That’s why they’re called banksters.
At the very least Bernanke, Geithner, and Summers should lose their jobs.
I know Sen. Cantwell has been tilting at this particular windmill, hopefully she is able to get something useful through the sausage factory that is Congress.
Christ Stefan @ 11:
Why no blame for Bush or Paulson?