Free Republic

Mitt Romney has been quick to justify his record of laying-off workers and closing plants as CEO of Bain Capital by wrapping himself in the “creative destruction” of free market capitalism But Romney’s idea of capitalism is that you can fire workers and strip companies on the way up, and then if you are big and influential enough, demand taxpaying workers bail you out on the way down. While Romney’s supporters are putting up a heavy smoke screen, Tea partiers should understand that, as a supporter of the TARP Wall Street bailout, Romney’s “creative destruction” only applies to Main Street,...

The Treasury Department has been disclosing financial information about bailout programs in press releases only if the initiatives are expected to bring money in to the government, a new federal audit has found. The Government Accountability Office found that financial information for Troubled Asset Relief Program initiatives that are projected to cost the government money long-term – like the injection of capital into the American International Group – were not included in Treasury releases. “Although press releases for programs expected to result in a cost to Treasury provide useful transaction information, they exclude lifetime, program-specific cost estimates,” G.A.O., Congress’ investigative...

General Motors Co. (GM) has hired management consultant Hackett Group (HCKT) to help identify areas to cut an undetermined number of white-collar jobs, said two people familiar with the matter. Hackett Group, based in Miami, will help identify opportunities for cuts and efficiency improvements at headquarters and elsewhere in North America, said the people, who asked not to be identified revealing private plans. GM has been trimming engineers and other white-collar staff, said Jay Cooney, a spokesman, who declined to comment on whether the Detroit-based automaker had hired Hackett Group.

Gingrich’s recent explanations of his last minute support of TARP reek of crony capitalism.“Gingrich informed a crowd in Davenport, Iowa that, ‘I was very biased against [T.A.R.P.] and had opposed it all the previous week. I had a number of very, very successful businessmen who called me and said that you need to understand, this system is on the edge of total meltdown...' "

Gingrich also admitted that as a student of history, the fact that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury both agreed that the global financial system was on the edge of total failure also caused him to go from opposing T.A.R.P. to favoring its passage.

60 Minutes, as usual, had a very nearly excellent program last week on the economic collapse, and they were all upset because no one has been arrested; no particular person appears to be under investigation.  They have a good reason to be upset, but they seemed, at least in this report (and in several previous programs), to be clueless as to why. What happened at the end of 2008 changed history and the direction of the United States.  Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson goes to President George Bush and tells him, “The banks in the United States are about to collapse. ...

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Another trading day and another low for Bank of America's stock. Shares of Bank of America dropped more than 3% Tuesday, hitting a new 52-week low of $5.03 -- its lowest level since March 12, 2009. After the close of trading Tuesday, Bank of America was one of 37 financial institutions downgraded by S&P. Beyond the S&P downgrade, trading could become even more complicated in Bank of America's stock, if it falls below $5. Under that threshold, many broker-dealers will not allow investors to buy or short a stock on margin, according to a spokesperson for...

In the wake of the $700 billion TARP bailout, Warren Buffett apparently shaped a plan to clean up toxic assets that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner later adopted–resulting in massive profits for Buffett.That’s the latest bombshell revelation from investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s sensational new book, Throw Them All Out. According to Schweizer, after the bailout bill’s passage, Warren Buffett sat down and wrote then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a four-page private letter laying out a plan to clean up the toxic assets plaguing numerous financial institutions. Buffett proposed something he called a “public-private partnership fund.” For every $10 billion...

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, long dismissed by the GOP establishment as a fringe candidate, has broadened his electoral appeal and emerged as a major player in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, according to several recent polls and conversations with a handful of longtime Hawkeye political operatives... In a Bloomberg News survey — conducted by renowned Iowa-based pollster Ann Selzer — Paul was in a four-way statistical tie for first along with businessman Herman Cain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich... And, in a new Iowa State/Gazette/KCRG survey, Paul took 20 percent — behind only Cain...

12/31/2010 9,390,476,088,043.35 4,634,739,130,665.17 14,025,215,218,708.52

A plan by beleaguered Bank of America to foist trillions of dollars of funky Merrill Lynch derivatives onto its depositors is raising eyebrows on Wall Street. The rarely used move will likely save the bank millions of dollars in collateral but could put depositors’ cash behind the eight ball. The move also brought to light fissures between the nation’s top banking regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, in the wake of new regulations meant to curb the free-wheeling habits that fostered the worst crisis in a generation back in 2008. At issue is BofA’s decision to...

Some fascinating survey data from Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen: On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion. Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they...

It's no accident that Mitt Romney has done so well during this election cycle. He has excellent name recognition, he's extremely well organized, he's a great fundraiser, he's become a polished debater, and he's not gaffe prone. His business experience doesn't hurt either, although it is worth noting that the only reason he's able to brag that he's not a "career politician" is because he lost to Ted Kennedy for the Senate and probably would have lost in 2008 had he run for governor of Massachusetts again. All that being said, there's a reason why Mitt Romney has been unable...

The U.S. plans on being an active partner as efforts intensify to get Europe get back on its feet financially, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNBC Friday. Getty Images U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner With global leaders preparing for next month's Group of 20 nations (G20) summit in Cannes, France, the International Monetary Fund — of which the U.S. is the greatest contributor — is being relied on to help underwrite whatever efforts are needed to backstop toxic European sovereign debt . Geithner said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has "very substantial" resources to fund a device that could look...

Almost everyone who believes in the Constitution and free markets properly considers October 3, 2008, one of the darkest days in U.S. history. It was on that day that the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) became law. A day later, I wrote that law’s passage, accompanied by tactics and threats which amounted to orchestrated blackmail, over the strident objections of over 150 economists from across the political spectrum, only days after its initial voter-driven failure, proved that Washington’s politicians and elites “don’t care what we think.” Abhorrent as it was, the sickening saga of...

San Francisco bank executives cooked their books and lied to auditors just before they accepted a $298 million taxpayer bailout, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. They now have the distinction of being the first senior executives of a bank that received federal bailout funds to be criminally charged in connection with a scheme to defraud the government and American taxpayers. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged former United Commercial Bank CEO Thomas Wu and vice presidents Ebrahim Shabudin and Thomas Yu with illegally obscuring their bank’s mounting losses. A separate indictment charged Shabudin and Yu with securities fraud, conspiracy, falsifying corporate...

(Wall Street Journal) - More than half of $4 billion in federal funds disbursed this year to spur small business lending by community banks was used to repay bailout funds that the banks received under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Small Business Lending Fund was meant to raise capital at smaller banks, which tend to lend more heavily to small businesses, in the hopes of jump-starting growth and employment. But instead of directly lending to small businesses, many of the banks used the money to rid themselves of higher-cost TARP debt...

Pelosi: Wall Street protests are a Main Street reaction to bank bailouts By Jamie Klatell - 10/08/11 12:08 PM ET House Minority Leader Nancy Pellosi (D-Calif.) said the Occupy Wall Street protests are a reaction government putting "Main Street at the mercy of Wall Street" by bailing out failing financial institutions. In an interview for Sunday's "This Week" on ABC, Pelosi said that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was passed in 2008 when she was House Speaker and signed by President George W. Bush, was one of the causes for the demonstrations. "I think one of the most...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators bowed to pressure from big banks seeking a quick exit from the financial bailout program and did not uniformly apply the government's own conditions set for repaying the taxpayer funds, a new watchdog report says. The report was issued Friday by the office of Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $400 billion taxpayer bailout of the financial industry and automakers. It found that regulators, to varying degrees, "bent" to pressure from the banks in late 2009 and relaxed the requirements put in only weeks earlier. The regulators also were motivated by a...