Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Geithner DOA at Congress? Napolitano's Fight Club


George Will
Eugene Robinson

"Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work because I think there'll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer." - Joseph Stiglitz

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, if anyone can convince investors to buy a worthless piece of paper, it's Bernie Madoff." - Rahm Emanuel


More economic hearings in Congress. I used to have baseball games on in the background when I was puttering about the house, now its CSPAN. The Treasury's plan for toxic assets came under fire, and what Tim Geithner hopes to accomplish. Eugene Robinson, in his column for the Washington Post, says that: "He does have a vision, though. He sees, eventually, a reformed financial system in which the "too big to fail" behemoths such as AIG or Citigroup are required to run their businesses in a more conservative fashion. He sees better regulation and more transparency, so that hedge funds are not so opaque and the derivatives markets are not left unsupervised to run amok.

The goal that Geithner describes sounds like an improved system but not one that is fundamentally different from the system we have now. If populism is resurgent in the land, it doesn't get past Geithner's desk. Wall Street should be toasting the guy -- but with beer, not champagne."
 These are not the sweeping changes I'd like to see, to take the predatory practices out of the markets, but it does take some baby steps. Geithner is coming under fire for not being as inspiring as Barack Obama when he presents his case. He is more the geek who works best left alone in the background, and everyone picks on him when he has to make public speeches.

In order to prevent another A.I.G. mess, both the Treasury and the Fed want more powers for emergencies. "In his opening statement, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made the case for legislation--soon to be introduced by the administration on the hill--that would create guidelines and authority for the government to take non-bank financial institutions (like, say, Lehman Bros. and AIG) into conservatorship or receivership." Josh Marshall at TPM has this comment: "Fed Chair Bernanke has now added his support for new legislation giving the Treasury the power of take over failing major non-bank financial institutions and a set of tools, short of outright takeover, for limiting the risk they pose to the rest of the economy. What's interesting in this discussion is that the advocates -- Bernanke and Geithner -- appear to be saying explicitly that had these powers existed last fall the Treasury could have and should have taken over AIG, rather than keeping it on life support and paying out all its obligations at full dollar value." The conspiricy people see this as part of a larger plan to take over and dominate the markets, then the world after Moloch breaks through the dimensional barrier, no longer ruled out of London...while others wonder if it will be powers used wisely. Doesn't this feel like a comic book, with one party looking to have more superpowers? Here, Tim, let this spider bite you...

TPM also breaks down the story to show that Goldman Sachs is not being entirely upfront when they say they are paying back the TARP funds next month because there is too much federal oversight. In reality they benefitted from:

TARP funds: $10 billion plus
AIG securities lending unit: $4.6 billion
Maiden Lane III: $5.8 billion
AIG collateral: $2.5 billion

Total: $22.9 billion plus

Speaking of world domination, Homeland Security, the organization with the Nazi sounding name created by George Bush, has announced plans to help Mexico fight the druglords. "The goal is to disrupt the illegal flow of guns and money into Mexico, while blocking narcotics traffic — and the associated violence — into the United States.

The White House said the effort will include $700 million to help Mexican law enforcement and judicial systems to battle drug cartels under the Merida Initiative, a partnership involving the United States, Mexico and several nations in Central America and the Caribbean. The program aims to provide training, equipment and intelligence to fight drug trafficking, transnational crime and money laundering." Like I said before, the next step after that will be to take over their country, because we don't need no stinking badges to do it... The $700 million is used to combat the billions we already send across the border buying illegal drugs. Some gets laundered here when the gangs go to gun shows at state fair grounds in the South and buy illegal weapons from good old boys with Federal Arms Importation licenses. I know, because my younger brother had one and it was shocking at some of the ordinance he could get, including governments dumping guns from their outdated arsenals.

Soon we will see our own jet fighters bombing the tunnels that go under the border, just Like Israel does to Gaza... if you want to draw any parallels...


Late night jokes:

"We had quite a night last night. We had the president, Barack Obama, on the show. I tell you, the security was unbelievable last night. We had several of those German Shepherds, you know those bomb-sniffing dogs? And I tell you, once they got near the NBC prime-time lineup, they went crazy. Just went nuts." --Jay Leno

"People made a big deal out of the fact this is the first time a sitting president has done a late-night show. We tried to have other presidents on, but President Bush went to bed every night at 9:00. And President Clinton always seemed to have other late-night plans." --Jay Leno

"Senator Chris Dodd -- or 'Chris Dodge,' as they're calling him now -- after first denying it, now admits he's the one who eliminated the provision in the stimulus package that outlawed excessive bonuses. And coincidentally, he just happened to receive $280,000 from AIG in campaign contributions. What are the odds of that? Man, that's like putting Chris Brown in charge of the battered women's shelter." --Jay Leno

"You know, we own AIG, right? We own 80% of it. And because of all of the outrage over these bonuses, armed guards now have to be placed outside the AIG offices. You know what that means? Not only are we paying the AIG executive bonuses, we are now paying to protect the executives from us. Does that make any sense to anybody?" --Jay Leno

"Now they're talking about selling their office building in Manhattan to raise money. Oh, yeah, this is a great time to get involved in real estate. They'd lose another billion dollars. You know, I have a better idea. Put all the employees inside, put bars on the window, call it a jail and just lock the place up." --Jay Leno

"Today is the first day of spring. Yeah, or, as Al Gore calls it, global warming." --Jay Leno

"President Obama is very busy these days. He was just invited to his 30-year high school reunion in Hawaii. I heard they tracked him down on Facebook. They find you everywhere." --Jimmy Fallon

"America is pissed at the notorious AIG. Right? Somehow, these guys are the most hated people in America. They're getting death threats. I saw one AIG guy today, he was hiding behind the Octomom." --Bill Maher

"The House passed a bill where there's a tax now of 90% on the bonuses that these people get. So, half the Republicans voted against this. They said this is exactly the kind of punitive taxation that's going to drive good people out of the fraud business." --Bill Maher

"We spilled 25,000 barrels of oil into the Strait of Hormuz, by Iraq. And a U.S. Navy server ship collided with a submarine. Who else, but us, could invade the Middle East and lose oil? It's like robbing a bank and leaving your wallet." --Bill Maher

"There's a new bin Laden tape where he calls for the destruction of Somalia. That's right. Forget destroying America, that job is done." --Bill Maher

"You saw what happened in San Diego yesterday? There were these two drug dealers the cops were chasing on the freeway, and they started to throw all the money out the window. The cops were not suspicious -- they thought it was Obama's motorcade." --Bill Maher

"The president was in town this week. He spoke at the L.A. County fairgrounds. I tell you, he's still got it. People were sleeping outside all night. They were homeless, but that's not the point. They love him." --Bill Maher




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