Ungrateful Banksters

11 Comments

1. 

   Phil Perspective on May 25, 2012 at 10:52 am

   How easy it would have been to for a politician to paint them as villains and go after them will real aggression.

   But it might give Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell, Jake Tapper or Diane Sawyer the vapors!  And we can’t have that!!

2. 

   Superpole on May 25, 2012 at 11:02 am

   Well, this book will be on my must read list (Ferguson’s book, too):

   Neil Barofsky, a former official who actually put bankers in jail (imagine that!) is coming out with a tell-all book called “Bailout” about his experience as the Special Inspector General for TARP.  I don’t normally put up press releases, but this book will be upsetting to the administration because this is someone who was involved in the decisions, and Barofsky did not play ball with the Wall Street crowd.  Here’s the announcement.

   From December 2008 until March 2011, Barofsky was the Special Inspector General charged with oversight of TARP, working to ensure against fraud and abuse in the spending of the $700 billion allocated for the bailouts. From the start he was in constant conflict with the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts who were in thrall to the interests of the big banks and steadfastly failed to hold them accountable, even as they disregarded major job losses caused by the auto bailouts and failed to help struggling homeowners. Barofsky recounts how his reports of a wave of criminal mortgage fraud and other abuses being perpetrated against homeowners in connection with programs that the Treasury itself set up were ignored time and again.

   Barofsky offers detailed accounts of the behind-the-scenes conflicts and his struggles with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the Bush appointed “TARP Czar” Neel Kashkari and his successor, the Obama appointed Herb Allison, and others. His revelations show in stark detail just how captured by Wall Street our political system is; why the banks have not been held accountable; and how the failure to enact effective regulation has put the country in danger of an even bigger crisis in the future.

   There are two broad narratives about Barack Obama from American elites.  On the right, there’s a racist narrative about Obama’s socialist Kenyan origins, with offshoot dishonest arguments about his policies.  He’s anti-corporate!  He’s gone on a government spending frenzy!  He’s going to cut the size of the military!  These are not true.  On the Democratic side, there’s an equally dishonest set of arguments.  He’s not bold enough!  Congress is holding him back from his progressive instincts!  We haven’t made him do what we know he wants to do!  The real Obama is hidden behind a racist veneer on the right, that he’s a Kenyan socialist, and a fake narrative on the left, that he’s not bold enough.  The third narrative, which you can find on this blog, is that Barack Obama is a great deceiver, with a charming and cool demeanor that mask his ruthlessness and bank-friendly neoliberal ideology.  It’s hard to talk to this third narrative, because Democrats overwhelmingly approve of Obama, and Republicans simply cannot countenance the idea that their socialist enemy is as friendly or even more friendly to corporate power than they are.

   Beengo! The operative sentence here:

   “Republicans simply cannot countenance the idea that their socialist enemy is as friendly or even more friendly to corporate power than they are.”

   This is what I’ve been saying regarding democratic policies not being better or different than repug policy.

   Constantly kowtowing to corporate power is conservative policy– so when democrats coopt that policy, starting with Clinton, Emanuel, McCauliffe, etc., the “real” conservatives go ape and adopt the crazy (the birther nonsense, etc.) as a way to appeal to their base and independents.

   http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/former-bailout-watchdog-neil-barofsky-to-launch-tell-all-book
   -about-obama-administration.html

   • 

     Suranis1 on May 26, 2012 at 12:37 pm

     Sooo, its all the Democrats fault that the Republicans went crazy, and its nothing to do with the nice rational libertarians. How original. I’ll file that in the big pile of “Everything bad that happened in America is all the democrats fault. Vote Ron Paul!”

     rolls eyes

3. 

   Bazooka Joe on May 25, 2012 at 11:32 am

   As much as I loathe the New Republic, I think this article sums it all up rather well:

   http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/101726/obama-wall-street-donors-campaign-finance-tax

   Former Official A told me that Obama really does see the issue of extreme wealth in less nuanced terms than is typical for him: “When he talks about the economy, it’s not about red, white, and blue America; it’s about black and white. It’s `I’m against people who rip off the system.’ If you walked into this system today from some other planet, you’d say it’s insane. … I’m sure the president feels that … this is a nutty, crazy system–and that the people who are so successful should stop whining so much.”

   You can talk policy as much as you like, but that’s largely the conservative, corporatist Congress’ doing. I’ve never seen a President so openly condescending towards counterproductive wealth and financial industry since like Truman or FDR.

   Bill Clinton was an ex-hippie who desperately wanted respect from the suits. Obama tells the suits to go fuck themselves. He’s the guy who talks about “a poverty of ambition.” He’s the guy who lectures the US Chamber of Commerce on their civic responsibility. He’s running an entire reelection campaign against extractive capitalism and the Profit Ethos. If he were king, he’d probably legislate business school curriculum from Washington and make every MBA take a year of study at a public service academy. He’s the black Columbia grad who told New York to fuck itself, so he could make scraps organizing some South Side neighborhood instead.

   When you point out that these bankers still have it pretty fucking good in life, it’s because of the institutional impotence of the presidency in making law, not because of the personal benevolence of Barack Obama.

   • 

     ejmw on May 25, 2012 at 12:56 pm

     Thanks for the link.  That was an interesting read.

   • 

     BooMan on May 25, 2012 at 2:20 pm

     The Hedge Fund managers are the worst.  They didn’t even fuck up the economy but they have to take every swipe at those who did as some kind of personal affront.  So the president thinks their line of work is soulless and decided to go work in the South Side of Chicago in more noble work.  So what?  I made the same decision.  Money isn’t everything.  

     And they rip the president for not closing the debt at the same time that they want all their income taxed at 15%.  

     All those people can drop dead as far as I’m concerned.  

4. 

   torpid bunny on May 25, 2012 at 11:41 am

   Happened to see a bit of Frontline about MFGlobal. I hadn’t quite grasped before that MFGlobal not only stole 1-2 billion in depositor money, but they did it because of an outrageously irresponsible risk exposure. So they made undisclosed bets in the BILLIONS, in the course of which they stole depositor money to pay off margins or make new bets as they sank.

   And what have been the consequences for the deciders at MFGlobal? Some bad press yes. Loss of badge privileges to the respectable plutocrats club. Significantly less access to the big poker game. But they all have plenty of money, if perhaps here and there not enough to support the very finest lifestyle of the NYTimes magazine. Depositor money is now safely in the hands of JP Morgan, more or less. We learn that six agencies are investigating. This is not reassuring.

   As Krugman says, it’s not enough for them to have all the money. They want deference.

5. 

   Arthur Gilroy on May 25, 2012 at 11:54 am

   Just the bankers, eh?

   A useful subject transposition might be useful. Here it is.

   Mind you, these Democratic and Republican politicians haven’t seen their salaries or contributions go down. They haven’t…most of them…been voted out of office., nor have they  had to answer for their behavior in court. They haven’t lost their jobs. They are still making a fortune. How easy it would have been for a real progressive politician…you know, like the “Yes We Can” Obama that most voters thought they were electing…to paint them as villains and go after them will real aggression. That would have immunized the president from all kinds of criticism and deflected any blame he might incur for the vile system these politicians were complicit in creating. But he didn’t do it. And, yes, they still reign.

   Sorry man, but there it is in a nutshell. When are you going to begin to deal with it? I mean…the evidence is all on the table. When?

   A.G.

   P.S. Bazooka Joe…

   Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what!!!???

   Obama tells the suits to go fuck themselves.

   Bullshit.

   Obama tells the voters that he told the suits to go fuck themselves. Then he hires the selfsame suits as bosses and advisors and collects massive corporate money in contributions.

   Gimme a break here…

   Really.

   What nonsense.

   Last I looked, this “suit” was still Secretary of the Treasury.

   

   Little Timmy Geithner.

   The insider’s insider.

   A quick rundown of his PermaGov credentials might be in order for the more…credulous…among us.

   Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates (!!!) in Washington for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He went on to serve as an attaché at the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995-1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996-1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997-1998).[9]
   He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998-2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.[9] Summers was his mentor,[14][15] but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.[16][17][18]

   In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department.[19] He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003) at the International Monetary Fund.[9]

   In October 2003, at age 42,[20] he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[21] His salary in 2007 was $398,200.[22] As President of the New York Fed, he served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.[23] In May 2007, he worked to reduce the capital required to run a bank.[20] In November he rejected Sanford Weill’s offer to take over as Citigroup’s chief executive.[20]

   In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns.[14][24] In the same year, he played a supporting role to Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, in the decision to bail out AIG just two days after deciding not to rescue Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy. Some Wall Street CEOs subsequently expressed the opinion that decisions in which Geithner participated, especially the failure to rescue Lehman, contributed to worsening the global financial crisis.[25] As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s[17] in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand.[18]

   He’s nothing more than a financial spook. Wake the fuck up.

   AG

6. 

   utried on May 25, 2012 at 12:46 pm

   It probably stems from the meeting Obama had with the bankers where he told them that the only thing that stood between the pitchforks and torches and them, was his administration.

7. 

   Mac G on May 25, 2012 at 1:34 pm

   Now if the bankers ran state sanctioned marijuana businesses, Eric Holder’s DOJ would go after them in no time.

8. 

   gVOR08 on May 25, 2012 at 2:50 pm

   Our Galtian overlords want to steal every penny in the country, and they want us to admire them for doing it.