BREAKING: Geithner/Goldman/Bernanke/Paulson/AIG Coverup-Could Face Charges

[trailhound]

Judge Napolitano's Analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D7h1Nz7ySA&feature=player_embedded

 
http://www.prisonplanet.com/geithner%E2%80%99s-fed-told-aig-to-hide-%E2%80%9Cbackdoor-bailout%E2%80%9D.html

 Geithner’s Fed told AIG to hide “backdoor bailout”

Michael Hampton
Homeland Stupidity
Sunday, January 10th, 2010

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during its $180 billion bailout of American International Group, Inc., instructed AIG to omit details of its purchase of certain toxic assets from a December 24, 2008, Securities and Exchange Commission filing, according to e-mails between the company and the Fed released Thursday.

Using bailout money provided by the Fed, AIG paid a number of banks 100 percent of the face value of credit-default swaps, contracts tied to subprime home loans, at a time when other institutions were negotiating deep discounts for the paper. The names of the banks were also omitted from the SEC filing.

The information was finally disclosed in March 2009 after the SEC challenged AIG’s filing, prompting lawmakers and analysts to call the transactions a “backdoor bailout” of the banks. Topping the list of banks which benefited from the backdoor bailout of their toxic paper were Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale SA.

AIG New York

The e-mails, released Thursday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, show the Fed wanted a number of other details about the AIG bailout withheld or their disclosures delayed.

Geithner’s Fed told AIG to hide “backdoor bailout” 040110banner2

The coverage from Bloomberg News has all the gory details, including a non-denial denial that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was then chairman of the New York Fed, had anything to do with the cover-up.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has called the disclosure “troubling” and plans to hold hearings on the issue, though he publicly maintains full confidence in Geithner.

“The new details revealed today regarding AIG’s bailout in 2008 come as no surprise to those of us who believe that the American people deserve full transparency from the Federal Reserve,” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said in a statement. “My strong suspicion is that secret arrangements between cronies like this are not an anomaly, but the norm.”

The Fed, as you’ll recall, fought disclosure of the information, claiming that it would erode market confidence. No such thing happened, of course.

If dollar investors aren’t already spooked enough to run like hell, it’s hard to see what would convince them that the dollar isn’t nearly as safe as they seem to think.

“The status quo has made it entirely too easy and too tempting to behave recklessly with public funds in total secrecy,” Paul said. “The system needs radical change, but we should start with honesty, transparency and accountability to the American people about how their money is being handled.”

Update: TheNew York Times reported Friday that the Treasury department explicitly denied Geithner had anything to do with it. TheTimes quoted Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly as saying Geithner “played no role in these decisions and indeed, by Nov. 24, he was recused from working on issues involving specific companies, including A.I.G.”

[Dig]

House panel wants Geithner to testify about New York Fed and AIG
http://www.infowars.com/house-panel-wants-geithner-to-testify-about-new-york-fed-and-aig/
Brady Dennis
Washington Post
January 10, 2010

The chairman of the House oversight committee turned the spotlight Friday once again on the government’s much-maligned bailout of American International Group, saying he would ask Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to testify about whether company executives were told to withhold key details about how they were spending taxpayer money.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he will hold a hearing later this month to examine the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s role in advising AIG to limit its disclosures about billions of dollars it paid to other firms during the height of the financial crisis. Geithner was head of the New York Fed at the time.


“More than one year after the first federal bailout of AIG, the American people continue to question where their tax dollars were really sent when the government rescued this company,” Towns said in a statement. “I continue to believe that a comprehensive review of the rise and fall of AIG and the involvement of counterparties can provide a useful vehicle to understanding how inadequate regulations, cheap money, risky business deals, and in some instances, corruption led to the current economic crisis.”

He called for the hearing after the release this week of e-mails showing that the New York Fed had asked AIG to refrain from disclosing details about payments it had made to trading partners in the wake of its $85 billion initial federal bailout in late 2008.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Research related links
Geithner was “involved in just about every flawed bailout” of the Bush era
Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post
Geithner Wants Private Sector to Buy Toxic Assets
Geithner Grilled on Goldman Sachs Connections
Geithner Hired Undocumented Worker, Skipped Out on Taxes
House panel votes to cite Rove for contempt
Geithner’s New York Fed Told AIG to Withhold Details on Bailout
Geithner Extends $700 Billion Bank-Bailout Program
Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing
Tim Geithner Thinks We Can’t Handle the Truth
Geithner Savaged On Unemployment During Fiery Capitol Hill Hearing
Geithner Says U.S. Financial Rescue ‘Might Cost More’

[Dig]

Time for Tim to go!
http://www.infowars.com/time-for-tim-to-go/
MARK DeCAMBRE, PAUL THARP and JOHN AIDAN BYRNE
NY Post
January 10, 2010

After a string of personal and political bungles by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, critics of the country’s top money man are wondering what it takes to lose your job in Washington DC.

Geithner’s fielding a fresh round of criticism after e-mails surfaced last week that showed he forced insurance giant AIG to keep quiet about tens of billions of dollars in payments it made to several Wall Street banks — payment that represented full payouts funded by taxpayer cash that the banks otherwise wouldn’t have received.


The payouts were first revealed a year ago and were seen by many as a “back-door bailout” of Wall Street by Geithner. It was only learned last week that the Treasury chief moved to cover up the payouts.

Read more:

Research related links
How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America
Lawmakers soften opposition to bonuses
Senate to Give FDIC up to $500 Billion
U.S. Eyes Two-Part Bailout for Banks
Geithner says small banks can apply for bailout money
Geithner Wants Private Sector to Buy Toxic Assets
Lending Declines as Bank Jitters Persist
The Big Takeover
Big inflation sinks spending
Timmy’s Telephone Travesty
Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate Version 2.0
Stocks Tumble as Bailout Plan Is Unveiled

[ginge51]

COULD FACE CHARGES? 
About time they were locked up
Enough is enough now.

[trailhound]

Alex on the air covering the story.

[larsonstdoc]

Lock up all the scum bankers from the Zombie banks.

[tracer7]

we the people should make sure that scum like little timmy g get what they deserve. we need to press the issue to see that he gets locked up, that everyone involved gets locked up, no matter how far up it goes, no matter what the economic fallout.

[Southern Patriot]

Time for the audit the fed bill to get more mainstream attention so it can be pushed through the house and senate.
 I think they will hang this around Timmy's neck..Remember that he wanted to quit as fed chairmen and Obama said no. Making an example out of him now will serve to quell the public dissent of the Fed and make it look like they are actually trying to fix the "rogue monetary policy" of a "few bad apples". This way they can convince the masses that it isn't the system that is broken...They just had to root out the "corruption" of one lone policy maker. They probably couldn't find another scapegoat in time for the fireworks so Timmy got to keep his job even though he knew he sucked at it.

[hal 9000]

These men are not the kings of the earth. Lock Geithner up, just like you would any other high level thief. Then let's lock the rest of them up too.

[ES]

[larsonstdoc]

  1ST HOUR OF AJ SHOW,  1-11-2009


   ALEX CALLING FOR INDICTMENT OF GEITHNER FOR PERJURY--LYING IN FRONT OF CONGRESSIONAL AND SENATORIAL COMMITTEES

   (No doubt Geithner is a LIAR.)

[EvadingGrid]

Bankstergate - Business as Usual:
Geithner’s Cover-up of the AIG Bailout



Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 11^th 2010



The New York Federal Reserve, under the direction of current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, prohibited AIG from reporting that it was passing government bail-out funds directly to its buddies on Wall Street, most notably the criminal organization known as Goldman Sachs. More specifically, taxpayers were tapped (or their grand children were) to pay off bad gambling bets made by “counterparties” in the AIG derivatives casino. The mega-insurance corporation wanted banks to take 40 cents on the dollar against toxic CDOs (collateralized debt obligations). The banks turned to New York Fed mob boss Geithner who arranged an AIG sweetheart bailout with full knowledge the money would go to Goldman Sachs and the banksters to cover dollar-to-dollar protection of their gambling losses. Geithner did not report this to Securities and Exchange Commission on December 24. It was to be kept on the QT. In fact, before his confirmation hearings last year, Geithner was recused from matters dealing with specific companies and bailouts.

Last week details of this criminal conspiracy were fed into the corporate media spin machine. But instead of immediately arresting Geithner for grand larceny and having him do the perp walk in an orange jumpsuit like a common bank robber, it was suggested he merely be fired and another bankster crony fill his spot at the Treasury.

In fact, so-called lawmakers (who do not read bills before passing laws) support Geithner. On Sunday, Obama announced his unwavering faith in the former New York Fed boss, Bilderberg, CFR, and Trilateral member. “Secretary Geithner enjoys the strong support of the Senate Democratic caucus,” declared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who is under fire for calling Obama a “Negro,” a crime of more importance to the corporate media than a gaggle of banksters stealing trillions of dollars). Democratic leaders including Representative Barney Frank and House and Senate Democratic aides all support the second-story man Geithner and his bankster bosses.

Of course they do. Because they are all part of the master plan to bankrupt the nation and fork over the remains to the banksters and transnational corporations. The United States must be destroyed if the global elite are to realize their long-held plan to establish world government. Throwing in debt future generations of Americans while stripping the economic infrastructure out from under them is a sure-fire way to ensure they will become peons and slaves on the globalist plantation. “In 30-40 short years, America has gone from the strongest and most stable nation in the world, to one of the weakest and unstable. Poor Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and had a great fall, but few people will see the real truth that Humpty was actually pushed!” writes Patrick Wood.

Meanwhile, the plan is moving along splendidly for the banksters. In December, the labor force contracted by 661,000. “Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody’s Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath,” writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

It will be the Grapes of Wrath on steroids.

Republicans, naturally, are as supportive of this mass plundering as Democrats. “Conservatives agree that, as point person, you’ve failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this president’s ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?” complained Republican Congressman Brady of Texas.

Actually, Geithner did not fail. He followed the script wonderfully. It’s just that word leaked out and now he may be obliged to fall on his sword and retire to the country club and spend his remaining days giving speeches at thousands of dollars a crack to his bankster buddies and their hired hands.

In a somewhat more perfect world, not only Geithner but the global elite behind him would be arrested and charged with perjury, theft, conspiracy to conceal a criminal act, and malfeasance.

Ref

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-11/geithner-has-support-of-obama-democratic-lawmakers-aides-say.html
http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/america_plundered_by_the_global_elite_2005051812/
http://www.infowars.com/america-slides-deeper-into-depression-as-wall-street-revels/

See Also

http://www.infowars.com/geithner-says-small-banks-can-apply-for-bailout-money/
http://www.infowars.com/hillary-clinton-as-secretary-of-state-business-as-usual/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-extends-700-billion-bank-bailout-program/

http://www.infowars.com/blacks-terror-comment-breathtaking-stupidity-or-business-as-usual/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-us-quite-open-to-global-currency/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-says-us-financial-rescue-might-cost-more/

http://www.infowars.com/senate-panel-approves-geithner-for-treasury-post/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-was-%e2%80%9cinvolved-in-just-about-every-flawed-bailout%e2%80%9d-of-the-bush-era/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-wants-private-sector-to-buy-toxic-assets/

http://www.infowars.com/geithner-hired-undocumented-worker-skipped-out-on-taxes/
http://www.infowars.com/geithner-readies-latest-bankster-debt-slavery-plan/
http://www.infowars.com/hard-questions-for-tim-geithner/

[kushfiend]

listening to Tarpley lay it all out now on AJ.

haha wow Timmy G is so fubar!!!!!

finally the snowball is starting to roll!

[jofortruth]

Why the Fed Likes Independence - Jan 11, 2010 - by Ron Paul
http://www.house.gov/paul/index.shtml

Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs.  Apparently he felt at the time that regulators and the public would be angry that taxpayer money was used to fully compensate bankers who made some horrifically bad investment decisions.  These banks should have suffered the consequences of the huge risks they were taking.  After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times were good.  Instead, the Fed found a way to socialize these major losses so these banks could survive and continue making more bad decisions, at the expense of the American people and the value of the dollar.

Geithner claims that they had to take politically unpopular actions to save the economy from collapse.  Half of that is right – it was politically unpopular, but it is extremely premature at best, to claim the economy has been saved.  It was just reported that 85,000 more jobs in December.  Unemployment stands at 10% officially, and 22% according to more traditional calculations.  It is hard to argue that this sort of government waste has done anything but harm to our economy.  Raiding Main Street to bail out Wall Street is a foolish idea.  Main Street productivity and the strength of the dollar is the bedrock of the economy.  You cannot gut this foundation without eventually toppling everything else.  This is what too many policy makers either don’t understand or refuse to face.  Or even worse, perhaps they do understand, but don’t care!

In any case, this revelation makes precisely my point about the need for Fed transparency.  This claim that the Fed should have “independence” is a canard.  They very much enjoy their comfortable pattern of bailing out friends and devaluing the currency with no oversight and no accountability.  Geithner specifically asked officials at AIG not to disclose to the SEC or to the public particulars about this special deal for his friends.  We only know these details now because AIG was eventually forthcoming when Congress demanded some answers.

We should be getting this information, and information on all such dealings, straight from the Fed.  The Fed should be accountable to Congress because it is a creature of Congress.  The Constitution gives Congress the authority to oversee the integrity of the monetary unit.  We have unwisely and unconstitutionally delegated this authority to the Federal Reserve, which has in turn devalued our dollar by 95 percent and counting.  When the Federal Reserve engages in harmful policies, Congress is still ultimately responsible.  If the Fed is not made accountable through a GAO audit at least, it will continue to be accountable to no one, and that is unacceptable.  

Geithner expects to be praised and thanked for his actions instead of rebuked and fired.  He expects to be given more power to engage in “experimental” monetary policy in the future.  But he has just given us a very good idea of what the Fed and Treasury would do with more power, what they consider good monetary policy, and why they like their so-called independence.

[EvadingGrid]

listening to Tarpley lay it all out now on AJ.

haha wow Timmy G is so fubar!!!!!

finally the snowball is starting to roll!

Its a great interview . . .

[trailhound]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100109/ap_on_bi_ge/us_geithner_aig_hot_seat

Geithner called to explain AIG bailout secrecy
AP
 
By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner, Ap Business Writer – Sat Jan 9, 12:33 am ET

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will face a congressional grilling later this month about the suppression of details on deals that funneled billions to big investment banks while he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Lawmakers reacted angrily Friday to revelations in e-mails sent in late 2008 and early 2009 between lawyers for the New York Fed and American International Group Inc. The exchanges show the New York Fed wanted AIG to withhold information about deals that sent billions from the taxpayer bailout of AIG to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Societe Generale and other major banks.

"The lack of transparency and accountability is disturbing enough, but the outstanding question is why the (New York Fed) didn't fight for a better deal for the American taxpayer," said Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who first obtained the e-mails.

Committee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said Friday that the e-mails would prompt a review of AIG's rise and fall and its relationships with the banks that benefited from its bailout. He scheduled a hearing for the week of Jan. 18 and requested appearances by Geithner and New York Fed General Counsel Thomas Baxter.

AIG has become a poster child for Wall Street excess — and a political liability for Geithner.

Treasury and the New York Fed say Geithner was not involved in or aware of the matters raised by the e-mails. Yet questions about the company have dogged Geithner since long before the e-mails were released this week.

Last year, lawmakers lambasted Geithner after it was revealed that millions in bonuses would go to employees in the AIG division that was most responsible for the company's needing a $182 billion bailout.

A November watchdog report showed that Geithner quickly approved a decision to send billions in bailout dollars from AIG to Goldman and other banks that helped elect him president of the New York Fed. Geithner's decision might have caused the government to overpay banks that have since returned to profitability and lavish pay practices, the report said.

Geithner and the Federal Reserve also initially refused to name the banks that benefited from AIG's "backdoor bailouts."

In a March 4 Finance Committee hearing, Geithner refused to explain why Treasury wouldn't name the banks. "People really do want to understand the specifics behind that particular bailout," Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told him.

Fed officials argued that month that identifying the banks could upend the still-shaky financial markets. That argument eroded 10 days later, when the markets barely reacted to the Fed's disclosure of which banks had gotten the money, and how much they got.

Those earlier controversies were not addressed by the financial filings discussed in the e-mails released Thursday. That's led Treasury officials to complain that lawmakers and reporters are conflating the e-mails with the other issues and misrepresenting Geithner's role.

Lawmakers from both parties counter that the e-mails raise broader questions about whether Geithner rushed to aid and protect Wall Street while failing to act as quickly on unemployment and the housing crisis.

"People at the grass roots are reckoning with the realities of a battered economy every day, so arguments that clearly benefit the big banks ought to be studied," said Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Grassley said Thursday that his committee also should hold hearings on the matter.

In a statement, Grassley questioned Fed and Treasury Department claims that the details of the bailout had to be kept secret so that the country would be spared bank runs and other economic problems. He said the Finance Committee also should hold hearings about the $700 billion financial bailout Congress passed at the peak of the financial crisis.

Baxter said in a statement that the matters discussed in the e-mails "were not brought to (Geithner's) attention."

Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said Geithner "played no role in these decisions" because he had recused himself from dealing with individual companies after his November 2008 appointment as Treasury secretary.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday that Geithner has President Barack Obama's full confidence.

"He wasn't on the e-mails that have been talked about and wasn't party to the decision that was being made," Gibbs told reporters.

_____

Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

[trailhound]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60A0LB20100111

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. lawmaker said on Sunday he is seeking more information from the New York Federal Reserve Bank about its controversial emails on insurer AIG's bailout, saying he was shocked that the disclosures were never brought to then-bank president Timothy Geithner's attention.

Barack Obama

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who last week distributed email exchanges over AIG's decision not to disclose specific payments to banks in a December 24, 2008 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, released a letter from the New York Fed responding to the controversy.

In the letter, New York Fed general counsel Thomas Baxter said Geithner, now U.S. Treasury Secretary, had no involvement in the deliberations about the disclosures -- consistent with statements he made last week.

"In my judgment, as the New York Fed's chief legal officer, disclosure matters of this nature did not warrant the attention of the president," Baxter wrote in the letter dated Friday. "Further, Mr. Geithner played no role in, and had no knowledge of, the disclosure deliberations and communications referenced in those emails," Baxter wrote.

In the $180 billion AIG bailout engineered by the New York Fed, the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and the U.S. Treasury in September 2008, the New York Fed created a special purpose vehicle known as Maiden Lane III, which liquidated credit default swaps sold by AIG to banks for around $62 billion in taxpayer funds.

The emails in question pertain to whether specific payments made to banks under a $16 billion tranche would be disclosed and whether it would contain an explicit reference to the fact that the banks were to receive 100 percent of par value for their swaps.

Details of the payments in full to global banking giants, including Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank, were not disclosed until March, 2009, helping to stoke more public outrage over the AIG bailout.

"It's a staggering admission by Mr. Baxter that he felt strong enough that Secretary Geithner wanted him to limit AIG's disclosures on counterparty payments to the SEC that he says he didn't even feel a need to bring the details to his boss' attention," Issa said in a statement. "This letter raises more questions on the inner-workings of the New York Fed during one of the most pivotal periods in our nation's history."

At the time most of the email exchanges started -- late November 2008 -- Geithner had been nominated by then-president-elect Barack Obama to be Treasury Secretary. The Treasury also has said he was not involved in the AIG disclosure discussions and had been recused from dealings with specific companies due to his nomination.

Spokespersons for the New York Fed and the Treasury were not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman for Issa, Kurt Bardella, said Issa would like the New York Fed to produce all documents related to the AIG counterparty payments deal, including emails, memos, phone logs, and other exchanges from the Fed, AIG and the bank counterparties.

"At this point, taking people at the word isn't going to cut it," Bardella said, adding that the Treasury's responses so far "look more like political salvaging."

Bardella also said Issa has asked Baxter to agree to an interview with investigators who are looking into the matter, adding that it was difficult to believe that Geithner did not know about the counterparty disclosure details.

"If what Baxter says is true, then there had to have been some understanding that Geithner didn't want to be involved or know the details -- which is troubling."

The U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked Geithner and Baxter to testify at a hearing on the matter next week, but it is unclear whether they will accept the invitation.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

[centexan]

I admit I'm not completely familiar with this story, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but there's this, from the Huffington Post.  Story ran just before the Bush bailout:

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8...

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

I refer to the day the bailout passed as the day we got a fourth branch of government--the Treasury, not reviewable.

So, what crime, then, did Geithner commit?  Congress gave Treasury a pass on responsibility.

Enlightenment is welcomed.

[trailhound]

I admit I'm not completely familiar with this story, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but there's this, from the Huffington Post.  Story ran just before the Bush bailout:

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8...

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

I refer to the day the bailout passed as the day we got a fourth branch of government--the Treasury, not reviewable.

So, what crime, then, did Geithner commit?  Congress gave Treasury a pass on responsibility.

Enlightenment is welcomed.

 Well you know asses will be covered, we can only hope the american people have a light go on

[larsonstdoc]

  Alex spends 4 hours on the Geithner scandal and NBC Nightly News avoids the story all together.

[New Whirled Order]

  Alex spends 4 hours on the Geithner scandal and NBC Nightly News avoids the story all together.

Very telling isn't it?

[ES]

I admit I'm not completely familiar with this story, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but there's this, from the Huffington Post.  Story ran just before the Bush bailout:

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8...

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

I refer to the day the bailout passed as the day we got a fourth branch of government--the Treasury, not reviewable.

So, what crime, then, did Geithner commit?  Congress gave Treasury a pass on responsibility.

Enlightenment is welcomed.

well isn't that refferring to the treasury secretary, I think we are talking about what Geithner did when he was head of the new york fed. But I could be wrong.

[xereau]

Please use this image in any way you wish.

Enjoy!

[donnay]

Please use this image in any way you wish.

Enjoy!

I love it!  Thanks!!

[New Whirled Order]

Kashkari "cash-n-carry" has that 1000 mile Charles Manson stare, big time.  He's one creepy looking mo-fo.

Thanks, I'm stealin' this pic. lol

[tracer7]

I will get you out of this, just keep your mouth shut Tim

[akston]

Nice - there are 49 upmods on Steve Watson's Geithner story since I placed on Reddit. About a thousand people have seen it since yesterday at 5pm. Go and vote it up and maybe a couple thousand more will too.

Torpedoes away...

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/aodrm/explosive_leaked_emails_expose_treasury_secretary/

[trailhound]

lol that was my first thought when this story broke

[Jackson Holly]

^ ^ ^

Yaah ... that illustartion brings up the obvious question ...

what about his boss, HERR OBAMA?

The whole damn barrel of apples are rotten ...


One F'n sacrifice --- uh uuuh!

[Jackson Holly]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  I am the man of knowledge, ability and truth who is referred to as the Messiah.

   What are we to make of this?

[jjbk]

anyone have clips of his Cspan grilling?

[New Whirled Order]

The MSM is keeping very quiet about this.  99% of the country has no clue about any of this.

More lying by omission as usual.

[stella]

Yeah I'm looking for any articles/videos of the hearings yesterday - not much out there...  Was it just uneventful or what?

[stella]

Here's a little something - liveblogging of the hearing

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/tough-questions-expected-for-geithner-today/

Sounds like he got a bit of a grilling, but was very vague in his responses to it. Still, I'd like to see video...

[sternzy]

Yeah I'm looking for any articles/videos of the hearings yesterday - not much out there...  Was it just uneventful or what?

It's being blocked, by the administration.

[N.E.P.]

Revealed: See Who Was Paid Off In The AIG Bailout

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/revealed-see-who-was-paid_n_438933.html

A key question at the heart of the controversial bailout of AIG is just how much money the government lost. The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have worked to keep that number secret and to conceal who was on the winning end.

An unredacted document obtained by the Huffington Post list the damage in detail. Goldman Sachs alone, for instance, got $14 billion in government money for assets worth $6 billion at the time -- a de facto $8 billion subsidy, courtesy of taxpayers.

The list was produced as part of a congressional investigation led by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the federal bailout of AIG.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, purchased a slew of souring assets from the world's biggest banks for 100 cents on the dollar in November and December 2008. A scathing report by a government watchdog held Geithner responsible for the overpayments.

The New York Fed initially pressured AIG to keep the list hidden from investors, regulators and the public. When it was eventually filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC allowed the Fed and AIG to keep the details secret. A heavily-redacted version was made public last March.

The document is part of 250,000 pages of internal documents on the AIG deliberations subpoenaed by the oversight committee. It lists the toxic mortgage bonds that banks insured through AIG.

Those insurance contracts, called credit default swaps, are what the New York Fed ultimately took off AIG's books, paying the banks 100 cents on the dollar for toxic mortgage bonds -- home mortgages that were bundled together and securitized. The banks could never have gotten anywhere near such a generous deal on the open market, so the move served essentially as a direct subsidy to those banks from taxpayers.

Up until now, taxpayers had no way to know exactly what they owned. They knew they owned a certain amount of assets, but none of the details: which bundles of mortgages it purchased from AIG; how the banks were valuing those mortgages; how much collateral they had demanded from AIG on those securities; or which bank bundled those mortgages into securities.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top ranking Republican on the oversight committee, told HuffPost that he was not persuaded by government and Fed arguments that the transactions should be kept secret.

"Just because the government happens to own the bonds, which means--by the way, they don't have to be sold at all until they are worth what we want them to be worth -- that somehow they have to be kept a secret," Issa said during a break in the today's AIG oversight hearing, where Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testified about his role in the bailout as then-head of the New York Fed.

The troubled insurer tried to publicly disclose these details in December 2008 before being thwarted by the Geithner-led New York Fed. A month later Geithner left to head the Treasury Department.

Issa said that the public had a right to see the document. "I mean, think about it: What the government owns it can keep as long as it wants. It would be like saying you can't appraise federal land. Why? It is one of those things that's outrageous. We know we paid a hundred percent for them. We know who got the money. This document shows who ultimately were the beneficiaries. And we believe since that they've asked to have it locked up until 2018 -- and nobody today defended that -- that it's time to release that," Issa said.

A government audit this month found that as of Sept. 30, 2009, the Treasury Department was expecting a $30 billion loss on its TARP-related AIG investment. The value of the securities could ultimately rise, though.

"The way the AIG bailout was engineered was to specifically benefit Goldman Sachs and its trading partners," said Janet Tavakoli, a Chicago-based derivatives expert and founder of Tavakoli Structured Finance. "Goldman's past and present officers used crony capitalism to put their own interests ahead of the public."

The nation's fifth-largest bank by assets ultimately got $14 billion through what members of Congress are calling a "backdoor bailout" of the world's biggest banks.

"The suppression of the details of the [credit default swap] trades protected Goldman Sachs and its trading partners," said Tavakoli, who's examined Goldman's credit default swap arrangements with AIG. "The $182 billion bailout overall kept AIG alive, and its trading partners, including Goldman Sachs, benefited from the funds made available to the securities lending transactions and other subsequent trading transactions."

At the time the document was prepared, Goldman's $14 billion in souring derivatives had a market value of just $6 billion. Goldman had more than $8 billion in collateral from AIG to protect it from losses, meaning it was still about $6 billion short.

But more than $2 billion of those collateral payments came from AIG after it was bailed out on Sept. 16 of that year, according to a Nov. 2008 presentation prepared for the New York Fed that was released this week. So that $2 billion was made possible partly due to taxpayer assistance.

Combined with the $6 billion deficit it faced in the face value of those securities, Goldman Sachs ultimately received about $8 billion from taxpayers via AIG. Goldman posted a $1.3 billion profit for 2008.

Despite the Fed's protestations that full disclosure would harm AIG -- and thus the taxpayer -- the financial blog Naked Capitalism has largely pieced together many of the key details using public sources -- and traders who were interested in buying the bonds from the government would easily have access to the rest.

HuffPost published the unredacted document at 2:47 p.m. ET. One minute earlier AIG shares were trading at about $24.59. It closed the day at $24.91.

The document also includes detailed information about the transactions involved. The document, a Schedule A Shortfall Agreement, can be viewed here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/revealed-see-who-was-paid_n_438933.html

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I reached my download limit. There is three other pages here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/revealed-see-who-was-paid_n_438933.html

[independentWV]

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx

US Senate Bernanke confirmation

DeMint speaking now