GOLDMAN-SACHS
Posted on 07/17/2009 5:12:13 AM PDT by Liz
.......almost every lawmaker blasted Former Treasury Secy Hank Paulson's $700B bailout as a deception and ultimate bait-and-switch ruse. "It was masterful deceit," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), hammering Paulson for his initial pleas to Congress a year ago to buy toxic assets.....that went to prop up banks and financial firms......Paulson's payoff to his Wall Street "pals," said one lawmaker. "You misled Congress," said Rep Stephen Lynch (D-Mass). Paulson, he said, concealed his ultimate motive....to give $700B to his pals.'" "You asked us, and not very tactfully, for a blank check," said Rep Mark Souder (R-Ind). ".......if we had known you were going to use the money for something else, we would never have approved it." Paulson denied making a misleading switch, "I had to change gears -- the financial system was collapsing all around us." " I don't think anyone's buying what you're saying," said Rep Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Rep Edolphus Towns (D-NY) said, "When you turn over complete authority to the Treasury Department or the Fed, with no accountability and no checks and balances, you get seemingly arbitrary decision-making and residual suspicion."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That’s the beauty of the con. They have all of us believing it’s the “other side’s” fault.
Exactly!
This is not about GOP vs Democrat, this is about the elites vs the People.
They keep playing us off one against another.
What happened to that 'change' that Obama was talking about?
Same old policies are still in place.
‘Bout time we started wakin up!
We really need to clean house and take our country back.
Amen!
The BIG question in all of our minds-----how much did Paulson collect from his "friends" ------for blanketing them with billions and billions of tax dollars with virtually no accountability. Man, the wire transfers offshore musta been going 24/7.
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THE GOLDMAN SACHS MO---relatively simple---just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the economic wheels greased---at a price:
Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, smoothly selling investments THEY AND ONLY THEY know are garbage. Then G/S sucks-up up vast sums from the middle and lower classes with the aid of corrupt govt's (and govt officials like ex-GS'er Paulson) that allows it to rewrite the rules in midstream.
G/S helps grease the political wheels w/ campaign donations.
Finally, when it all goes bust------after G/S leaves millions of ordinary citizens broke-----they then begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue by lending back our own money at high interest----positioning themselves as moralists who are above greed.
This is President Bush's TARP plan being skewered. Senator Gregg was a GOP point man. Senator McCain left the campaign trail, came back to his government-paid job in Washington DC to "fix the economy." See Summary of HR 1424 at thomas.loc.gov for details of support and opposition.
The bill passed the Senate 74-25, mostly GOP opposition, but also some wacky liberals opposed as well (Cantwell, Feingold, Wyden).
The Republicans OWN this action, lock, stock, and barrel.
He deserved to lose JUST for TARP and it's why Romney is on my crap list too. McCain was probably told by Bush he could win if TARP immediately fixed the economy in October. Any moron should have known (by October) that Obama would win and be president and they were just giving Obama TARP money with a republican legacy of worthlessness. I know certain talk radio host were claiming McCain would win, unfortunately many of their listeners (the groupies) are not to bright.
Lame duck second term I think 43 just wanted to get out of Dodge. Palin however has a different approach.
It was perfectly played by Pelosi.
First, she calls for the vote on the $700B bailout, but doesn't force any of her inner circle or committee chairmen to vote for it. It fails be a handful of votes and the House Republicans get blamed - even though the Dems could have easily passed it by themselves.
Secondly, after several days of hand-wringing and media pressure, a second vote is taken - in the midst of a Presidential race where Republicans have been cast as the cause of the problem - and the bill passes. The media description is that it passes because several Republicans switched sides.
Third (as a bonus),it linked the financial crisis to the Presidential race. McCain cut and ran to Washington to mediate the "crisis" and it backfired. It was the turning point of the campaign.
Finally - and this was the plan all along - it pays off the big-money Democrats on Wall Street, but fails to do what it was originally designed to do and the Republicans get blamed because Paulson worked in a Republican administration.
Thanks for the link at post #14.
On June 9 President Obama called a press conference where he announced, "Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers." While Mr. Obama's announcement came as welcomed news, it was rightly assumed that any money or profit would be returned to the general funds from whence it had come in order to pay down the debt. The truth, however, is that the money returned by the banks is finding new life as part of what amounts to a Treasury Department-controlled slush fund.
REFERENCE Sen. Corker: TARP Just a Big Slush Fund
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 1:06 PM, By: Marc Davis
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/corker_tarp_slush_fund/2009/05/06/211386.html
TARP, the U.S. government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, has become a slush fund, said Sen. Bob Corker, (R-Tenn.). Corker, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, told the annual meeting of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association in Chattanooga that the executive branch can spend TARP money any way it wants. "It (disbursement of funds and transparency requirements) has not been carried out the way it should have," Corker said in his address to the mortgage bankers, quoted in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Despite his criticism of how TARP money is currently being handled, Corker said passage of legislation authorizing the bailout fund probably averted collapse of the financial system.
TARP legislation, requested by former President George W. Bush, was approved by Congress late in 2008. Last month, Corker and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) introduced legislation that would impose strict mandatory reporting requirements for banks who receive TARP funds. Their proposed bill, the TARP Accountability Act, is designed to plug gaps in the oversight rules which track the billions of bucks the government is passing out and how that money is spent. Such stepped up oversight is a necessity, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, released in January.
On this issue, even billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist George Soros would agree with Corker. The TARP program has been carried out in a "haphazard and capricious way" and "without proper planning," Soros said earlier this year. © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
GOLDMAN-SACHS
America was too big to fail!. It hsd to be done. Unemployment could have hit 9.5% if it didn’t pass.
At least we live in a free country, right?
Audit the Fed. Then imprison or hang the bankers.
Yep, Bush and McCain, worthless. Well Bush leaving in January was the end of that sad history of republicans giving gifts (issues) to Pelosi, although you can tell democrats LOVE Bush and Cheney as they try to keep them in the news with phony charges and investigations like this latest ‘Cheney memo” nonsense.
Hank Paulson former chairman of GoldmanSachs666. He bailed his people out and Obama continued making it worse
Somebody was prepared for this move. All it took was a "trigger" event.
Same thing for the Homeland Security Department/framework.
Again, Congress tries to obfuscate their own role in this bailout fiasco. Paulson may have had ulterior and nefarious motives but Congress is a pack of lying fools that repeatedly avoid due diligence on their own legislation and hide their behavior behind delegated bureaucrats and diffused pain. I despise them.
God, I LOVE hypocrits!!! The VERY SAME PEOPLE who couldn’t wait to rush to judgement and cast a ballot for the TARP bill (lacking any specifics about how the money would be spent) are now sniping at the primary person who pulled the wool over their eyes!!!
Listen here, Paulson, they seem to be saying, it is WE, the Congress, who pull the wool over OTHER PEOPLE’S EYES!!! WE don’t like having the wool pulled over OUR eyes while we are in the process of NOT DOING the jobs we were elected to do!!!!
EXACTAMUNDO!!!! WE, the people, didn't want the TARP bill in the first place and told Congress in overwhelming numbers (~70 - 80% as I recall) to vote NO. Instead, they voted for it without reading any of the details and gave Bush/Paulson a blank check to spend as they pleased.
Within a very short few weeks, Paulson changed the terms of the deal by altering how the money could be spent. Congress should have recognized that they were snookered at that point and killed the funding. However, Congress being filled with so many drama queens, wanted to wait until now when they could squeal "We was robbed!!"
And, they wonder why they are so widely disliked and so discredited!!! They do it to themselves.
They really need to bring back public hangings. Pay per view would be fine.
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