Posted on 02/11/2009 3:03:27 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
RUSH: I want you to listen to this, Paul Kanjorski. He's a Democrat member of Congress from Pennsylvania. He was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal on January 27th.
KANJORSKI: On Thursday at about 11 o'clock in the morning --
RUSH: Stop the tape a second. Go back and recue this. He's talking about September the 18th here. Let me tease you even further. September the 18th is the day last year that the world economy almost came to an end. Don't smirk. It's true, Snerdley. That's what Kanjorski is saying. So he's talking here about Thursday, September the 18th.
KANJORSKI: On Thursday at about 11 o'clock in the morning the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. It pumped $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide; we were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.
RUSH: Do you remember this? This is the day I think that the Atlanta banks ran out of one-hundred-dollar bills. But now stop and think of this: A $550 billion withdrawal from money market funds in one-to-two hours. I am convinced -- and there's one more sound bite to go here -- I am convinced that this is what they took to the White House and said to President Bush, "We have got a disaster, you have got to get on board with a bailout," which came later on in October, "you've got to get on board with this $700 billion, the TARP 1," all because 550 -- now, what precipitated this? Here's the second Kanjorski sound bite.
KANJORSKI: If they had not done that, their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, five-and-a-half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. We're really no better off today than we were three months ago because we've had a decrease in the equity positions of banks because other assets are going sour by the moment.
RUSH: Now, this is January 27th, Kanjorski is talking about this, and we have to allow, since Kanjorski is a Democrat he's part of the Pelosi team, we have to allow that some of his comment here is being flavored. When he ends up saying we're no better off today than we were three months ago, some of this is obviously oriented toward panic and getting people to go along with the bailout today, but let's leave that aside because that's traditional Democrat Party politics. If they had not done that, if that $550 billion-dollar withdrawal in an hour or two had not been stopped, if they hadn't closed the windows, he says that five-and-a-half trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States. Now, when I hear money market I think of savings accounts, higher interest rates than passbook savings at the old downtown building and loan where people park their money temporarily 'til they decide where to put it permanently. He says five-and-a-half trillion would have vanished from the banking system, would have collapsed the entire economy of the US and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.
Now, we've gotta allow here for some exaggeration. It's amazing this was said on C-SPAN on Thursday, January 27th, and nobody picked up on it. We got it from a website called LiveLeak. They were rummaging through things, and they found this. Now, let's assume for a second here that elements of this are true. Let's assume that there was a $550 billion run, electronic run on the banks and money market accounts in one to two hours. The question is who was doing this? Who was withdrawing all this money? And the next question is why? That's where my mind starts exploding, and this is dangerous to have these explosions going this way. Could it have been George Soros? Could it have been a consortium of countries -- Russia, China, Venezuela -- countries that are eager to have Barack Obama elected because they know that will make it easier for them to continue their own foreign policies in the world? In the meantime, five-and-a-half billion dollars in one to two hours, that can probably be confirmed. The five-and-a-half trillion is speculation based on the rate at which money was coming out. We could check that the Fed stopped the trading windows, they closed the window. We do know they were pumping money into the system left and right. And remember when the Federal Reserve loaned elements, $2 trillion and we weren't told who got the money? And we still haven't been told who got the money.
We know that last fall, the Federal Reserve lent $2 trillion to somebody or a series of somebodies, and we still don't know where it went. We know last year that we had a crisis on our hands and everybody was saying if we didn't do this today the country was finished and they got Bush on board, they got Paulson on board. Obviously this kind of news, if somebody from the Fed shows up and Bernanke and Paulson say, "Hey, we got a chance here of losing five-and-a-half trillion dollars if we don't do something," I mean that's gotta scare anybody into some sort of action to stem the tide. RUSH: We have an AP-Obama story here that targets the date of this run on money market accounts to September 16th. It was Kanjorski on C-SPAN on January 27th, said it was Thursday the 18th. Here's the AP story: "A money-market mutual fund that 'broke the buck' amid a rush of orders to pull out cash has begun returning an initial $26 billion to investors who had been unable to access their money for more than a month. ... On Sept. 16, the rapid sell-off of assets caused the value of fund assets to fall to 97 cents for each investor dollar put in -- the first instance in 14 years of a money-market mutual fund 'breaking the buck,' or having its per-share value fall below $1. Reserve Management froze redemption orders. That led institutional investors to pull out cash..." I think both dates are right. September 16th, the rapid sell-off begins and "[t]hat led institutional investors to pull out cash from that fund and others, creating fears about the safety of the $3.4 trillion in assets held in money-market funds, and a new temporary government money fund guarantee program.'" It's sort of just a casual, hey, no-big-deal kind of story from the Associated Press -- and here again is Kanjorski talking about this. Let's go back to these two sound bites, Paul Kanjorski (Democrat-Pennsylvania) on C-SPAN's Washington Journal on January 27th.
KANJORSKI: On Thursday at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550 billion was like being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide; we were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.
RUSH: By the way, I should tell you that Kanjorski's source for this is none other than Bernanke -- Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve -- and the Treasury secretary, Hank Paulson. They are the two figures that told members of Congress what was going on with this initial run of $550 billion, an electronic run on the banks, money market accounts, investor accounts here. He goes on to say this, if they had not stepped in to stop this, if they had not closed the window...
KANJORSKI: If they had not done that, their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, $5-1/2 trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. We're really no better off today than we were three months because we had a decrease in the equity positions of banks because other assets are going sour by the moment.
RUSH: So the last part, I think that's just salesmanship for doing something now to get the stimulus bill passed, although Kanjorski is among some Democrats starting to shift to the cant that more time is needed to make a correct decision this time; which I think is one of the reasons Geithner postponed his announcement to today from last week or even today. So, you know, I have been suspicious of all this that happened last fall. It just seemed too perfectly timed. Now we know that these are not individual money market accounts like you would have had to withdraw your money. This is money invested in a mutual fund money market account. So it is quite possible somebody could have started a run on this thing and the word spread, and it did -- and the $550 billion withdrawal in one hour would panic anybody. So there's so much to this. You know, it's always the case that there's so much more going on in all this that we don't know. The Drive-By Media, any longer, is worthless in ferreting out the truth involved in events. They totally exist on the surface. They exist with a path of least resistance particularly with Democrats in power, because with the presumption that Democrats could abuse power or commit ethics violations just doesn't even cross the radar. It doesn't even show up on the radar. It's not possible for Democrats to behave in that fashion, and so all this stuff goes on below the surface and we find out about it much later after the fact.
Yeah, I agree...it would have been far better for the feds to rescue Lehman rather than ever enacting TARP.
Read Later
Soros is the most evil, heartless, destructive man in the world. I would think he is the Anti-Christ, except the Anti-Christ is supposed to be attractive and Soros is mega-ugly. The money he has made destroying other countries’ currencies is funding communist propaganda in the media, entertainment, and groups like MoveOn.org. His tentacles reach everywhere. I also believe he is the one pulling O’s strings. O couldn’t even handle the intro remarks at his press conference yesterday without his teleprompter! O can’t think for himself; he’s just an empty suit. O is Not Ready For Primetime and someone has to do his thinking for him. I believe it is Soros. Soros has said publicly that he wants to destroy this country and his organizations are doing a good job of it right now.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09212008/business/almost_armageddon_130110.htm
Rush is exactly right.
This is an interesting thread. More to come I’m sure...
The $500 Billion run on money markets occurred within 1 hour. The time frame was 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, on Thursday, September 18, 2008. When it became clear that an injection of $120 billion could not halt the hemorrhage, trading was suspended and the damage was irreparably done.
Your economically sophisticated and logical reasoning is quite sound. However, the event has many illogical, but equally sophisticated aspects that are inexplicable at the moment, including the precise timing and the identities of the prime movers in the event. So, it is not yet "pretty clear what happened," except if you are speaking of a damage report.
However, given George Soros's long and criminal history of currency manipulations conducted against governments other than our own, certainly an investigator would be amply justified in making him "a person of interest" in the case. Were I George Soros, I would be extremely grateful that those who investigate him will probably be Americans, not French, Indonesian, or especially the Russians.
..... No matter what, it would have happened eventually....
A reasonable assumption on your part, but an assumption none the less. It is an equally reasonable assumption that a coordinated blow was delivered against the financial system of our country on 9/18/08.
We can investigate, but I don’t think Soros orchestrated this for political gain. For days, from about September 11th on, the street was waiting for the announcement of a bailout for Lehman...it didn’t come. When Lehman fell, the ripple effects began. I see panic on the part of investors and some manipulation by Buffet and others to try to calm the waters, it just didn’t work.
(I) OK
(II & III) I sense your mind is somewhat open, why not wait and see what happens in I?
Of course, in American law, Soros' sins in foreign jurisdictions remain off limits, except as a subliminal reminder those deeds of which this former concentration camp kapo is capable.
Objection: Sustained: Strike that. The jury is to disregard KB's prejudicial remarks.
As a follow-through I believe this is an ideal issue for Republicans and Kanjorski and other Democrats who can be communicated with to be asked about.
If the mailers and callers who communicated about the pork issue were to request as a highest priority of an inquiry into this incident it would be difficult for many to oppose such an inquiry, which would have two aspects:
1) Were any existing laws violated, and
2) What can be done to make sure it can never happen again?
“Same thing”
Nah.
bookmark
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Ping
Yep!
Ping-worthy, imho !!
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Timed for the election?
Timed for the election?
If this is true - if President Bush was played for a fool - and the economy was taken to the brink of disaster for political gain - heads will roll.
Where's the FBI? Pull the FBI off Madoff and on to the real financial crime of the century.
Thanks for the ping!
My gut tells me there are a number of political, wealthy leaders around the world that want to bring the USA to it's knees.
IMHO, Soros won this election to an empty suit that Will follow his directions. Soros got everything he wanted.
A liberal, black/white American with a domineering wife who will follow directions as instructed.
One more tin hat theory..Soros and Pelosi are using O as their puppet.
JMHO
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