By not letting AIG fold, it has been a handy way to use an unregulated product (the Credit Default Swap, or CDS) designed by JP Morgan, and made legal and unregulated by the Republican congress with the help of the DLC Democratic (Democratic Leadership Council/ Hilary Clinton/ Harold Ford/ Al From/ Chamber of Commerce/ Third Way/ Corporate wing) Clinton admistration.
It is time make it clear by stopping any more money from going to AIG that we are ending support for the multi-trillion dollar unregulated casino that is the CDS market. The only place you can bet on your neighbors house burning down (or his company folding) and get rich. Price of entry to the casino? be a global bank. Cost if you lose? Nothing if you can get it past while people squabble about millions.
American chamber of Commerce in Paris
President
Oliver Griffith
On France24 english language new service.
On what drives the worlds economy....
"once american consumption starts ..... that will be the driver once again
in the world economy"
On how European banks that lost in the Central European,
Icelandic, Russian, and Chinese housing booms were protected from
loss by the American tax payer....
"There is the free-rider concept in all this. If the US
stimulates it's economy then the US consumers will buy again,
and they"ll buy European and Asian products.
Look at the AIG problem, where the US subsidized massively,
saved AIG, and some of the people who are profiting the most
are European banks, French banks, who are basically 'bailed out'
because they were insured by AIG and the US didn't let AIG
fail."
http://www.france24.com/en/20090319-wbentopstory13h15m090319flv-griffith-us-europe-bailout-adequate
From Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/16/aig-counterparties-bailout-markets-equity-cds.html
European banks lead the list with Societe Generale receiving $6.9 billion; Deutsche Bank , $2.8 billion; and UBS , $2.5 billion. Meanwhile, stateside, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch received $5.6 billion and $3.1 billion, respectively.
Per existing swap agreements, AIG had to post $22.4 billion in collateral where the underlying investments were downgraded. Societe General received $4.1 billion; Deutsche Bank, $2.6 billion; Goldman, $2.5 billion; and Merrill, $1.8 billion.
AIG also had to post $43.7 billion during the quarter to unwind its securities lending business and $12.1 billion to different municipalities that had guaranteed investment policies. California and Virginia received $1 billion each.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
11/100ths of 1 pct., we care about, but 41% we don't?
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/03/16/business/OUKBS-UK-FINANCIAL-AIG-COUNTERPARTIES-sb.php
Goldman received an aggregate $12.9 billion. Among European banks, SocGen was the biggest recipient at $11.9 billion, Deutsche got $11.8 billion and Barclays was paid $8.5 billion.
Why should one read sources beyond the normal media? This morning is a prime example. The furor over 165 million in bonuses to the London branch of AIG, (an "outrage" the president says), is interesting compared to the relative silence over the more than 60 Billion given mostly to European Banks.
European banks received this money because they were the secret "counter parties" to AIG which the federal reserve learned about (and refused to reveal during congressional testimony) before the bailout. No wonder Bernanke first asked for complete carte blanche and immunity from prosecution when he made his first request (just 3 pages) to congress.
These banks were owed the money because they had bought "credit default swaps" - which is the equivalent to being able to take out insurance on your trip to the lottery or casino. These are completely unregulated, by request of the industry, because they were to be used only by the best and the brightest and would need no govt. regulatory protection.
Must be nice to have friends in high places... maybe you could meet them if you went to England with the G20 central bankers, Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, or to any of the other regular meetings of the world's central bankers.
But if you even want to find out about this, you need to think for yourself, and read The Economist, or the International Herald Tribune.
Goldman received an aggregate $12.9 billion. Among European banks, SocGen was the biggest recipient at $11.9 billion, Deutsche got $11.8 billion and Barclays was paid $8.5 billion.
Why should one read sources beyond the normal media? This morning is a prime example. The furor over 165 million in bonuses to the London branch of AIG, (an "outrage" the president says), is interesting compared to the relative silence over the more than 60 Billion given mostly to European Banks.
European banks received this money because they were the secret "counter parties" to AIG which the federal reserve learned about (and refused to reveal during congressional testimony) before the bailout. No wonder Bernanke first asked for complete carte blanche and immunity from prosecution when he made his first request (just 3 pages) to congress.
These banks were owed the money because they had bought "credit default swaps" - which is the equivalent to being able to take out insurance on your trip to the lottery or casino. These are completely unregulated, by request of the industry, because they were to be used only by the best and the brightest and would need no govt. regulatory protection.
Must be nice to have friends in high places... maybe you could meet them if you went to England with the G20 central bankers, Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, or to any of the other regular meetings of the world's central bankers.
But if you even want to find out about this, you need to think for yourself, and read The Economist, or the International Herald Tribune.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Fourth Estate to enter foreclosure.
Citing massive failures, liquidation of assets to begin immediately.
New York City, New York - Unable to regain public trust following a string of "blown calls", the fourth estate
announced late on Friday that it would be closing for restructuring and reorganization under new
management.
"Lets face it, they really weren't doing a very good job and people were getting tired of hearing
"no one could have seen this coming" and "no one could have known", when by doing a few
minutes of Google searching they could have discovered that everyone should have seen this coming
and that many people did know" said Pascal Picanic-Basquet of France24 News.
"The people simply said they had had enough. Enron, Iraq WMDs, the housing bubble" said Pascal
"they were more than just foreseeable, they were obvious, if not for the constant cheer leading done by the
members of the estate. They seem to have forgotten their jobs as a check on power, and instead
began enjoying the perks of becoming celebrities themselves"
Money honeys, talking heads, and experts at wind direction through wet finger divination
were all taken by surprise when the announcement of foreclosure was made.
"Wow, who could have seen this coming?" said Erin Burnett of CNBC "We felt that after
Jim Kramer's outstanding work on the Daily Show that all would be forgiven and we could continue
giving people the important news they need to speculate on an hourly basis. But now what am I to do?
Go back to Goldman-Sachs or the Citigroup Financial Network? I'm pretty sure they aren't hiring,
although I will have to ask someone about that ."
Assets including reporters, photographers, printing presses, and the buildings which housed them were
to be sold at fire sale prices beginning next week. Having previously lost many of the reporters to blogging, and photographers and presses to the men's magazine business, disposal of the physical structures might be the most daunting.
Possible uses being suggested include museums, indoor organic farms, and multilevel electric kart
racing centers
New York City, New York - Unable to regain public trust following a string of "blown calls", the fourth estate
announced late on Friday that it would be closing for restructuring and reorganization under new
management.
"Lets face it, they really weren't doing a very good job and people were getting tired of hearing
"no one could have seen this coming" and "no one could have known", when by doing a few
minutes of Google searching they could have discovered that everyone should have seen this coming
and that many people did know" said Pascal Picanic-Basquet of France24 News.
"The people simply said they had had enough. Enron, Iraq WMDs, the housing bubble" said Pascal
"they were more than just foreseeable, they were obvious, if not for the constant cheer leading done by the
members of the estate. They seem to have forgotten their jobs as a check on power, and instead
began enjoying the perks of becoming celebrities themselves"
Money honeys, talking heads, and experts at wind direction through wet finger divination
were all taken by surprise when the announcement of foreclosure was made.
"Wow, who could have seen this coming?" said Erin Burnett of CNBC "We felt that after
Jim Kramer's outstanding work on the Daily Show that all would be forgiven and we could continue
giving people the important news they need to speculate on an hourly basis. But now what am I to do?
Go back to Goldman-Sachs or the Citigroup Financial Network? I'm pretty sure they aren't hiring,
although I will have to ask someone about that ."
Assets including reporters, photographers, printing presses, and the buildings which housed them were
to be sold at fire sale prices beginning next week. Having previously lost many of the reporters to blogging, and photographers and presses to the men's magazine business, disposal of the physical structures might be the most daunting.
Possible uses being suggested include museums, indoor organic farms, and multilevel electric kart
racing centers
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Greenspan Shrugged
My response to Greenspans claims that he was helpless... at SeekingAlpha
When asked why he backed massive increases in federal spending under the Clinton administration, Greenspan responded that he feared that the massive inflows of capital from foreign markets would have otherwise caused (gasp) deflation. Remind you of anything? Of course, we couldn't have possibly of used this to pay off the debt, stop stealing from the SS trust fund, build out infrastructure, or any of several hundred possible uses that come to mind now.
Oh woah is us for not being able to stop those nasty Asian countries form sending us 90 pct of global capital outflows.. and of course we could also could do nothing about (or bother to notice) that we had gone into a negative savings rate. 2pct for my deposit? oh goodie!
A decent electrician knows not to wire everything together in one long serial circuit. You put in capacitors, fuses, etc. Greenspan and Co. have wired us all in line and said that now we can do nothing about it. Too big to fail? I say too stupid to continue existing. LTCM should have been a warning, instead it was the starting gun.
James Goldsmith on Charlie Rose in '94 warned us about this.... not building our infrastructure, sending our manufacturing and money overseas, and the fact that the notional value of trades in derivatives each night was more than the worlds GDP. Charlie just parroted Laura (now with Obama) Tyson and said that NAFTA was a great success and that the GATT/WTO would bring a new light to the world.... instead it has become our electric chair. The wires are still run in the form of the CDS chasm that we refuse to recognize still exists. We push money in the front door of AIG, and they drop it in the big hole that goes to their (not so secret) counterparties. UBS, Goldman, DeutscheBank, Rabo, SG, etc.
The objectivists were almost right when they followed the hollywood star struck Russian immigrant sycophant who changed her name to ayn rand and wrote novels to engratiate herself to the elites whose hinies she loved to kiss.... except we now find out that the average workers/savers are the Atlases, and Greenspan and friends are the looters/moochers.
If Greenie is right, then of course we must do what we can to stop these massive waves of cheap money from coming at us in the future. Globalism has been a disaster to the heart of our economy. Melamine laced dogfood anyone?
The amount of our debt being held by foreign govts has proven to be a noose around our necks, tightening enough that Hilary has to play nice and ask please sir, may i have another cup of money?
But don't expect anyone who is making billions without risk to suggest a change. Certainly not our private central banks share holders. Santelli was right, the Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express.
Nor do I expect a word of warning from GE/Vivendi, The Mouse Network, or Rupert "i just married a chinese gal" Murdoch. They all have too much on the line to irk their communist/capitalist buddies.
When asked why he backed massive increases in federal spending under the Clinton administration, Greenspan responded that he feared that the massive inflows of capital from foreign markets would have otherwise caused (gasp) deflation. Remind you of anything? Of course, we couldn't have possibly of used this to pay off the debt, stop stealing from the SS trust fund, build out infrastructure, or any of several hundred possible uses that come to mind now.
Oh woah is us for not being able to stop those nasty Asian countries form sending us 90 pct of global capital outflows.. and of course we could also could do nothing about (or bother to notice) that we had gone into a negative savings rate. 2pct for my deposit? oh goodie!
A decent electrician knows not to wire everything together in one long serial circuit. You put in capacitors, fuses, etc. Greenspan and Co. have wired us all in line and said that now we can do nothing about it. Too big to fail? I say too stupid to continue existing. LTCM should have been a warning, instead it was the starting gun.
James Goldsmith on Charlie Rose in '94 warned us about this.... not building our infrastructure, sending our manufacturing and money overseas, and the fact that the notional value of trades in derivatives each night was more than the worlds GDP. Charlie just parroted Laura (now with Obama) Tyson and said that NAFTA was a great success and that the GATT/WTO would bring a new light to the world.... instead it has become our electric chair. The wires are still run in the form of the CDS chasm that we refuse to recognize still exists. We push money in the front door of AIG, and they drop it in the big hole that goes to their (not so secret) counterparties. UBS, Goldman, DeutscheBank, Rabo, SG, etc.
The objectivists were almost right when they followed the hollywood star struck Russian immigrant sycophant who changed her name to ayn rand and wrote novels to engratiate herself to the elites whose hinies she loved to kiss.... except we now find out that the average workers/savers are the Atlases, and Greenspan and friends are the looters/moochers.
If Greenie is right, then of course we must do what we can to stop these massive waves of cheap money from coming at us in the future. Globalism has been a disaster to the heart of our economy. Melamine laced dogfood anyone?
The amount of our debt being held by foreign govts has proven to be a noose around our necks, tightening enough that Hilary has to play nice and ask please sir, may i have another cup of money?
But don't expect anyone who is making billions without risk to suggest a change. Certainly not our private central banks share holders. Santelli was right, the Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express.
Nor do I expect a word of warning from GE/Vivendi, The Mouse Network, or Rupert "i just married a chinese gal" Murdoch. They all have too much on the line to irk their communist/capitalist buddies.
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