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An investment firm linked to Hunter Biden received over $130 million in federal bailout loans while his father Joe Biden was vice president and routed profits through a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, according to federal banking and corporate records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. Financial experts said the offshore corporate structure could have been used to shield earnings from U.S. taxes. Rosemont Capital, an investment firm at the center of Hunter Biden’s much-scrutinized financial network, was one of the companies approved to participate in the 2009 federal loan program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF....

The New York Daily News has a preview of what's to come in the Rolling Stone article (out Friday). Exhibit one: a company that the wives invested $15 million in called the Waterfall TALF Opportunity. After founding and investing in the company, the wives took $220 million in TALF loans, bought "student loans and commercial mortgages" -- and didn't pay back $150 million yet (as of the fall).

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?Most Americans know about [the official US] budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. [Snip] Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout...

Yesterday the Federal Reserve Board of New York made an announcement, indicating recent posturing that it would carefully pick collateral for the TALF program, has been a sham (not that we would expect anything out of Bernanke, Cheatem and Howe). One wonders what the utility of having so many new NRSROs recently hired by the Fed receive taxpayer money and to share their perspective on collateral quality, when the Fed openly overrides them and decides what legacy loans are TALF-worthy on its own. Here is the Fed's mea culpa: The New York Fed continuously reviews the stress value estimates and...

In a Dec. 2 letter to New York Fed chair Dennis Hughes, Senators Jim Bunning, R-KY, and David Vitter, R-LA, asked him to explain the workings of the little-known Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility (TALF), which was authorized by the Federal Reserve Board in November 2008. The Fed got $20 billion in TARP funds to back $40 billion of TALF loans made to stimulate the economy. But "there are troubling questions raised by [the] selection of certain participants in the program," the letter said, including Loop Capital, a major donor to the Democratic Party. Noting that taxpayers are much more at...

In the news today The Federal Reserve announced that due to the continued lying by banks about asset valuations, a practice that has resulted in ABS and CMBS markets remaining locked up, they are continuing to sponsor and support accounting and control fraud, acts that should be treated as felonies and result in prison sentences: Nonetheless, the markets for asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by consumer and business loans and for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are still impaired and seem likely to remain so for some time. To promote the flow of credit to businesses and households and to facilitate the...

(ChattahBox)—Bailout cop, Inspector General Neil Barofsky, released a blistering 250-page report today, indicating he is pursuing at least 20 TARP criminal investigations for possible fraud, insider trading, tax violations, collusion, kick-back schemes and even, money laundering. The report also indicated it would be conducting at least a dozen financial audits of troubled banks and other institutions receiving bailout funds.

Washington and Los Angeles -- In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes. The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program. ..... The report said little about who is under investigation and how the fraudulent schemes work, but investigators are already on alert for a long list...

Game theory tells us that a risk neutral gambler would pay $50 dollars for a coin flip that paid $0 for Heads and $100 for Tails. Game theorists would call $50 the value of the bet. Suppose someone is willing to fund your gambling problem, and lend you $80 at zero interest. Better still, if you lose the bet you don’t have to pay him back. Under that scenario, the same gambler would pay $90 for the bet, giving him an even chance of winning or losing $10.

The private sector will set prices. Taxpayers will share in any upside.The American economy and much of the world now face extraordinary challenges, and confronting these challenges will continue to require extraordinary actions. No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk. Those decisions have caused enormous suffering, and much of the damage has fallen on ordinary Americans and small-business owners who were careful and responsible. This is fundamentally unfair, and Americans are justifiably angry and frustrated.The depth of public...

Geithner to formally unveil details of next step in rescuing banks: Public-private partnerships. WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration on Monday will formally unveil a program to help banks clean up their books by subsidizing private investors' purchase of troubled assets. The effort marks the next big step in Washington's six-month-old bank rescue, which has so far mostly entailed making capital investments and backstopping bank debt. Administration officials, in a briefing with reporters late Sunday night, said they plan to commit $75 billion to $100 billion to start wiping out bad assets and would evaluate how programs are working before...

To view or print the PDF content on this page, download the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®. March 23, 2009tg-65Treasury Department Releases Details on Public Private Partnership Investment ProgramFact SheetPublic-Private Investment ProgramView White Paper and FAQs at http://financialstability.govThe Financial Stability Plan – Progress So Far: Over the past six weeks, the Treasury Department has implemented a series of initiatives as part of its Financial Stability Plan that – alongside the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – lay the foundations for economic recovery: Efforts to Improve Affordability for Responsible Homeowners: Treasury has implemented programs to allow families to save on their mortgage...

THE Obama administration is about to unveil the anxiously awaited details of its initiative to fix the banks. But, judging from the details already leaked, the Public-Private Investment Fund (PPIF) isn't going to do the job. Those of us working last year under then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson studied and rejected a similar scheme. Expect the new team to ultimately wind up falling back on expansion of the program we began, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which just became operational. A viable long-term solution must purge from banks' balance sheets the troubled assets now clogging the nation's credit pipeline....

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials worked Sunday to persuade reluctant private investors to buy as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and related assets from banks, with government help. ... But some executives at private equity firms and hedge funds, who were briefed on the plan Sunday afternoon, are anxious about the recent uproar over millions of dollars in bonus payments made to executives of the American International Group. Some of them have told administration officials that they would participate only if the government guaranteed that it would not set compensation limits on the firms... ...“What we’re talking about...

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve launched a highly anticipated lending facility Tuesday aimed at generating up to $1 trillion in consumer and small business loans. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which is scheduled to begin disbursing funds March 25, will make loans to purchasers of AAA-rated securities backed by new auto, credit card, student and Small Business Administration guaranteed loans. The facility is commonly referred to as the TALF."By reopening these markets, the TALF will assist lenders in meeting the borrowing needs of consumers and small businesses, helping to stimulate the broader economy," the Treasury and Fed said...

Hedge funds are showing interest in potentially borrowing money from the Federal Reserve to buy securities backed by auto loans. In the next week or two, the Fed is expected to announce the terms under which investors can borrow from its $200bn term asset-backed lending facility (Talf), which will determine whether hedge funds will be able to borrow cheaply enough to make investments in the auto loan-backed securities worthwhile. Bank of America and Barclays Capital are marketing a $500m bond called World Omni backed by recently issued auto loans. Once the Talf terms are set, that deal could be eligible...

Washington--The government is working on a new loan facility to help companies that issue credit cards, make student loans and finance car purchases. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve will unveil the program Tuesday, according to people familar with the plan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement has yet to be made. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said he plans to use a "relatively modest share" of the $700 billion financial bailout money to pay for the new program. It's the latest effort by the government to break through a dangerous credit clog that has...

Government plans new credit, mortgage programs By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 19 mins ago WASHINGTON – The government introduced a pair of new programs Tuesday that will provide $800 billion to help unfreeze the market for consumer debt and to make mortgage loans cheaper and more available.