Posted on 03/11/2009 2:05:04 PM PDT by Jack Black
In 2006 a CJR editor (a seasoned journalist formerly with Time magazine in Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, and The Far Eastern Economic Review) called me to discuss suspicions he was forming about the US financial media. I gave him leads but warned, “Chasing this will take you down a rabbit hole with no bottom.” For months he pursued his story against pressure and threats he once described as, “something out of a Hollywood B movie, but unlike the movies, the evil corporations fighting the journalist are not thugs burying toxic waste, they are Wall Street and the financial media itself.”
His exposé reveals a circle of corruption enclosing venerable Wall Street banks, shady offshore financiers, and suspiciously compliant reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNBC, and The New York Times. If you ever wonder how reporters react when a journalist investigates them (answer: like white-collar crooks they dodge interviews, lie, and hide behind lawyers), or if financial corruption interests you, then this is for you. It makes Grisham read like a book of bedtime stories, and exposes a scandal that may make Enron look like an afternoon tea.
This is what we are bailing out a trillion dollars at a time.
You forgot “politicians”.
downloadable in PDF format! http://www.deepcapture.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/deepcapture-the-story-v1.pdf
Politicians CREATED this mess!
ACORN protested at banks that did not OK risky loans.
ACORN took banks to court, to block mergers, based on the refusal of the banks to approve risky loans.
The Community Reinvestment Act, pushed by Fannie and Freddie and ACORN, gave ACORN the right to sue in court, based on lending practices.
Government CAUSED this problem!
Government wrote the rules. (With the help of ACORN)
Obama, as an ACORN attorney, helped shove those rules down the lenders throats.
Add politicians and those MORONS we pay to monitor the players -— where the heck were they?
The federal trade commission the FBI etc etc - both external and internal watchdogs.
Or do we have a cabal of traitors working within our govt like those Jack Bauer deals with on “24”?
Look ANYWHERE in this financial crisis, and you’ll find a DEMOCRAT, or a DEMOCRAT FINANCIER, lining thier pockets and enabling corruption...
Democrats ran Citi, Chase, Morgan, Lehman, Fannie, Freddie, Countrywide, etc,etc... ALL gave big money to DEMOCRATS and Democrat K Street Lobbyists.
FIVE BILLION DOLLARS, IN FACT!
Democrats Maddoff and Stanford stole BILLIONS, and gave MILLIONS to Democrats.
DEMOCRAT Joe Cassano lost FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS at AIG’s London Office.
DEMOCRATS Reich, Rubin, Gorlick, Raines, and Pritsker were the original architects of the Sub-prime fiasco, and massive bank consolidations!
Dodd, Reid, Frank, Ragell, Biden, Kerry, etc,etc, ALL DEMOCRATS, blocked ANY attempts at Mortage Reform, calling it RACIST, while getting sweet deals from those banks for themselves...
Jackson and Sharpton, DEMOCRATS AGAIN, staged PROTESTS anytime ANYONE dared to try and stop these idiot mortgages!
DEMOCRATS were scooping away cash in WHEELBARROWS from all of the inner-city MORTGAGE FRAUD!!!
Does ANYBODY get it, yet?
For later.
“The federal trade commission the FBI etc etc - both external and internal watchdogs.”
And both conduits to MUCH higher paying jobs as minions for the Democrat masterminds of this mess, if you just played ball.
The Banker, the Broker and the Washington Joker.
**
It fits so well!
When G.W. Bush took office in 2001 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were likely insolvent. More than 40 percent of the mortgages they owned were subprime loans. This time-bomb was created in 1994 when Bill Clinton and HUD Secretary Cuomo expanded federal lending regulations to include high-risk borrowers who fit the demographic profile of Democrat voter. Fannie Mae's board was stacked with former Clinton staffers to help hide growing financial problems at the company resulting from Clinton/Cuomo policy:
FALSE SIGNATURES AIDED FANNIE MAE BONUSES, FALCON SAYS
By Kathleen Day and Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writers
April 7, 2005
Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a “manipulation” that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives, a federal regulator said yesterday.
Armando Falcon Jr., director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said the entries were related to the movement of $200 million in expenses from 1998 to later periods. The result of the changes was an increase in Fannie Mae's 1998 earnings per share and the release of a $27.1 million bonus pool for senior executives.
Fannie Mae reported paying the following executive bonuses in 1998: chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines, chairman-designate, received $1.11 million; Chief Operating Officer Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard received $493,750; and Robert J. Levin, an executive vice president, received $493,750.
(scroll down on link)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32845-2005Apr6.html
Gorelick left Fannie Mae after four years with $26 million. Raines left with $50 million.
From 7-16-08 WASHPOST:
[. . .Raines settled charges brought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight by agreeing this spring to pay $2 million and forfeiting $22.7 million in stock and other benefits. And though none of it will come out of his pocket — the payment was covered by insurance — he has not emerged unscathed. He and his wife of more than 25 years, Wendy, are separated. . .]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/15/AR2008071502827.html
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You are soooo right in bringing that aspect of the problem to our attention.
Even worse than the behemoth of the “elected” part of the federal govt (our emasculated useless and vain elected reps) is the entrenched unionized bureacracy which, like a monstrous octopus, is seeking to devour us all.
bump
The corruption is so deep that it is unfathomable. Every critical institution is part of it. Wall Street, banks, brokerage houses, regulators, reporters, politicians.
New York and Wall Street are a pox on America. The Fed is a virus that is destroying the host (us).
Something more than tea parties is going to be needed to shake this off.
I said 'mob families' and didn't want to be redundant ! :-)
For your ping list.
maybe of interest to “shifflist” in so far as Schiff is the main person publically calling those involved liars and theives to their face. (Well Max Keiser too)
bump
A La Lanterne !!
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