Posted on 04/06/2009 8:49:58 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it’s going to take $2 trillion — a trillion is a thousand billion — $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they’re allowing all the banks to report that they’re not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can’t be true. It can’t be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they’re fine.
These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because…
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, Geithner has, was one of our nation’s top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal, that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig in the poke stuff happened under him. So, in his phrase about legacy assets. Well he’s a failed legacy regulator.
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
been posted but very worthy of re-posting
Mr Black, the obama prayer group will be coming for you.
I did all the requisite searches before posting and could not find an exact match, but I know that I had not pinged the transcript to the list, and it’s definitely worth a read.
The “deer in the headlights” look does not promote confidence.
I coulda told you that!
However, it is WRONG to think we are in trouble because people “broke the law”.
We are in trouble because bankers and lenders FOLLOWED THE LAWS -— BECAUSE THE LAWS ARE STUPID!
I first saw it a couple days ago and have been posting the link to the video on various threads (I even put it on my Facebook page)...it is a fascinating interview. Bill Moyers is incredulous, but asks all the right questions.
What, we are seeing now, is history* re the tax and spenders doing what they did in 1934. Check the banner on the wagon saying, "Young Pinkies from Columbia and Harvard". Now, we can add Yale and basically any other left wing university.
* Thanks to Bob the Nailer for this heads up and scary trip down one of history's insane moments which is being repeated by the 0b0z0 thugs.
Gw Bush believed in total hands off and his stooge Chris Cox was the same. They left the thieving Democrats of Wall Street to run amuck with CDOs. CMOs. derivatives and credit default swaps. Federal Reserve with stooge Tim Geithner a principal player was in cahoots with Wall Street and helped them expand, streamline derivatives in 2005 so they could really flood the markets with their crap. Also blame that senile old hippy Ayn Rand butt kisser Alan Greenspan. Also blame the Comptroller of the Currency
MONEY QUOTE-—>>
WILLIAM K. BLACK: And their ideologies, which swept away regulation. So, in the example, regulation means that cheaters don’t prosper. So, instead of being bad for capitalism, it’s what saves capitalism. “Honest purveyors prosper” is what we want. And you need regulation and law enforcement to be able to do this. The tragedy of this crisis is it didn’t need to happen at all.
...... worthy of a re-post.... :)
wow!
bush is always wrong and they fail to mention clinton’s participation.
http://www.propublica.org/feature/geithner-nyfed-tenure
Interesting, well-researched article looking at Geithner’s tenure at the NY Federal Reserve Bank:
As Crisis Loomed, Geithner Pressed But Fell Short
In September 2005, Timothy Geithner made one of his most visible moves as a supervisor of the U.S. banking system. He summoned the nation’s top financial firms and their regulators to streamline an antiquated system that threatened Wall Street’s boom.
Billions of dollars worth of financial instruments known as credit derivatives were being traded daily, as banks and investors worldwide tried to protect against losses on increasingly complex and risky financial bets. But the buying and selling of these exotic instruments was stuck in a pencil-and-paper era. Geithner, then head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, pressed 14 major financial firms to build an electronic network that would cut backlogs and make the market easier to monitor.
Geithner’s summit, held at the New York Fed’s fortress-like headquarters near Wall Street, was a success. By fall 2006, the new system had all but eliminated the logjam, helping derivatives trade more efficiently. One financial industry newsletter honored Geithner as part of a “Dream Team” for his leadership of the effort.
Yet as Geithner and the New York Fed worked to solve narrow mechanical issues in the derivatives market, they missed clear signs of a catastrophe in the making. When the housing market collapsed, derivatives stoked the fires that ignited inside some of the biggest banking companies. The firms’ failure to assess an array of risks they were taking has emerged as a key element in the multi-trillion dollar meltdown of the global financial system.
Although Geithner repeatedly raised concerns about the failure of banks to understand their risks, including those taken through derivatives, he and the Federal Reserve system did not act with enough force to blunt the troubles that ensued.
That was largely because he and other regulators relied too much on assurances from senior banking executives that their firms were safe and sound, according to interviews and a review of documents by The Washington Post and the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica.
bttt
The New York Times is playing their role too - history repeated...
Even among libertarians, there’s always a need for regulation. There have to be things such as legal contracts and there must be a proper judicial system to make sure that contracts get enforced. Regulation is then limited to the enforcement of contracts and stopping fraud.
The problem I have with these former regulators that come on TV is that they want more and more power for the government. The government needs to look at the balance sheet of a bank, run their stress tests, tell them how much leverage they can have, tell them what they can and can’t do, and then all sorts of craziness — how much fuel economy that car should have, how much executives should be paid, etc. If instead the government focused on its basic regulatory duties such as enforcing contracts and did them well, could we have more innovation in the markets thanks to more freedom and less resources being used by the government?
And this is the money quote:
“So, instead of being bad for capitalism, it’s what saves capitalism.”
Oh yes! Government saves capitalism!
The libertarians I meet here want zero regulation of Wall Street. I see it all the time
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, then the banks will, as they did in Japan, either stay enormously weak, or Treasury will be forced to increasingly absurd giveaways of taxpayer money. We’ve seen how horrific AIG — and remember, they kept secrets from everyone.
BILL MOYERS: A.I.G. did?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: What we’re doing with — no, Treasury and both administrations. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration kept secret from us what was being done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs. Secretary Paulson’s firm, that he had come from being CEO. It got the largest amount of money. $12.9 billion. And they didn’t want us to know that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and not Congressional pressure, by the way, on Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.
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