tagged w/ GregPalast
-
Financial companies that received multibillion-dollar payments owed by A.I.G. include Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), Merrill Lynch ($6.8 billion), Bank of America ($5.2 billion), Citigroup ($2.3 billion) and Wachovia ($1.5 billion).
Big foreign banks also received large sums from the rescue, including Société Générale of France and Deutsche Bank of Germany, which each received nearly $12 billion; Barclays of Britain ($8.5 billion); and UBS of Switzerland ($5 billion).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/business/16rescue.html?scp=3&sq=aig%20goldman&st=cse
**********************
So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream.
People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.
The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.
The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers. - MATT TAIBBI
The Big Takeover
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
Posted Mar 19, 2009 12:49 PM
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
Still the plot thickens...
Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?
http://current.com/items/89901630/was_eliot_spitzer_taken_out_because_he_was_going_to_bust_aig.htm
Stay tuned...
"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it." - A. A. HodgeFinancial companies that received multibillion-dollar payments owed by A.I.G. include... more
-
-
America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer's.
Eliot Spitzer is back and he's talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn't what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?
Today in Slate Eliot Spitzer has a short op-ed that speaks volumes about what is going on, and indirectly, if you follow the money, what happened to him. Plainly stated, Spitzer brings the AIG Ponzi Scheme one step closer to the revered establishment when he explains how the bailout money was funneled straight into the top players, with Goldman Sachs being the name that comes up again and again. These top players already got bailout money, and Goldman is looking at zero losses at this point, while regular Americans are being asked to make concessions or just plain losing everything. here are the biggest financial entities in the world, making billions on what appears to have been nothing but air traded back and forth, and having gutted the American people they are walking away with 100% return to their stockholders. In return AIG seems to think that its appropriate to pay themselves bonuses with the leftover funds. This leaves AIG still a wobbly shell with no plan of how to go forward, and the threat of the collapse of all of the world's financial markets still up in the air. So, what was all that bailout money for? Apparently to make sure that no one at Goldman or the other few top firms in the hand-out-line lost anything!
THE NITTY GRITTY IS HERE...
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/132547/was_eliot_spitzer_taken_out_because_he_was_going_to_bust_aig/?cID=1164909#c1164909
Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer
“Why the Bush Administration ‘Watergated’ Eliot Spitzer”
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/25-bushs-real-problem-with-eliot-spitzer/
As usual, I may add with a smug ;) Greg Palast was on that very button eons ago (in journalistic time ;)
Eliot's Mess
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/
"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it:" A. A. HodgeAmerica is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain... more
-
