Free Republic

This week financial news organization CNBC gave some mainstream attention to the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History, in which “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners are being accused of laundering of 43 trillion dollars worth of ill gotten gains. The lawsuit is said to involve officials located in the highest offices of government and the financial sector. Since this information was surprisingly revealed by the mainstream news organization there has been a very suspicious and deadly fallout at the CNBC headquarters. Within hours the original page for the article was taken down, and CNBC senior...

IT might seem remarkable that there’s more to say about our late Bailout Age. But there is more — a lot more. Nearly four years after Washington began its huge rescues of banks with taxpayer dollars, an important player in this, one of the great financial dramas of all time, is offering a damning account of how the Bush and Obama administrations handled the whole episode. He is Neil Barofsky. Remember him — the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program? And his new account, a book titled “Bailout” (Free Press), to be...

The government’s special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the “TARP” bank bailouts) – Neil M. Barofsky – wrote a stunning editorial for Bloomberg yesterday, concluding: Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again. Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we hope...

Neil Barofsky is a lifelong Democrat who was appointed by George Bush to be the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP). He has done superlative work over the last two years in uncovering vast waste of taxpayer dollars. He also has started looking into whether the car closings ordered by the Obama administration were influenced not by efficiency or economy but whether dealers were chosen to be saved based on their minority status. His latest report - buried by much of the media - was highly critical of how the Treasury was using suspect methodology...

Some federal government heroes were honored yesterday, and Barack Obama was nowhere to be seen. For good reason. From Ed O'Keefe of  the Washington Post: Politicians talk plenty about rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, but the folks who actually find the corruption enjoyed a few brief moments in the limelight Tuesday. The nation's federal watchdogs honored 85 of their own at an awards ceremony consistent with the work ethic of many inspectors general: It started on time and lasted an hour, as promised. It featured no refreshments or souvenirs and no long-winded acceptance speeches. It was a very...

As many as 100,000 Americans who lost their jobs, or will soon, because of GM and Chrysler dealership closings can thank Barack Obama and his "mandate for shared sacrifice," according to a top Obama official. In a scathing report on the federal auto industry bailout, Special Inspector General Neil M. Barofsky notes that the Obama administration rejected initial automaker plans which would have required relatively minimal dealership closings, insisting instead on far more drastic cuts -- as many as two thousand dealerships between the two corporations. (snip) And Barofsky's report even questions whether the closures would lead to any real...

US bail-out efforts are having a significant impact on some credit markets, the Treasury and Federal Reserve said in a report on Monday, just as the watchdog for the rescue effort attacked a lack of transparency.Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the troubled asset relief programme, said that the various US schemes to shore up banks and restart lending exposed federal agencies to a risk of $23,700bn – a vast estimate that was immediately dismissed by the Treasury. He added in his own report to Congress that “disagreements remain” between the office of the special inspector-general for the troubled asset relief...

The government’s top watchdog over the $700 billion financial rescue package said the Treasury Department has "repeatedly failed" to adopt his recommendations that would make the program more transparent and accountable to taxpayers. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that taxpayers are being left in the dark about what banks are doing with bailout money, don't know the value of the government's investments and will not know the full extent of how the money is invested. Barofsky said that while the TARP program that Congress passed amounts to...

April 24, 2009, 1:42 a.m. TARP Looking More Criminal by the MinuteThe issue of TARP corruption may now extend from corporate CEOs and federal regulators to New York’s attorney general. By Donald Luskin Is TARP a criminal enterprise? When a CNBC producer called me on Wednesday to see if I’d debate that question on the Kudlow Report that evening, I thought the allegation was ridiculous. How could the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program to rescue the banking system possibly be compared to the Sopranos? But now I’m not so sure. Yesterday’s sensational claims by New York Attorney General...