"a chamber in which bankers hold political sway"
"the power of the banks"
"Dodd pushes new plan to oversee banking institutions; Proposes merger as Senate redraws financial outlook" by Stephen Labaton, New York Times | September 20, 2009
WASHINGTON - Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who heads the Senate Banking Committee [and] faces a difficult reelection campaign in Connecticut partly because of the perception that he is cozy with the financial services industry....
Senior Democrats in Congress say Dodd may have to thread a needle as he publicly takes on the financial services industry - whose members have a heavy presence in Connecticut and are some of his biggest campaign contributors - while trying to project an image of independence from it to get re-elected. But as chairman, he may also have to make compromises with industry lobbyists to move the legislation through a chamber in which bankers hold political sway....
The Dodd plan is certain to run into sharp resistance from banking industry lobbyists, who have already been urging lawmakers to defeat it even before it is formally introduced. It will also probably face stiff opposition from bank regulators, who are protective of their turf....
The industry has important allies among Democrats and Republicans on the banking committee....
The Dodd plan would reduce the stature of the Federal Reserve in several ways.
How much you want to bet Dodd loses his seat?
The central bank, which has evolved since its creation nearly a century ago into a powerful banking regulator and has gained even greater power over the last year, would lose authority over banks, as well as its ability to regulate mortgages and credit cards.
But, the Fed is Your Friend.
Dodd has also rejected the administration’s proposal to give more authority to the Fed to play the leading role as a so-called “systemic risk’’ regulator that examines the connections between regulated and unregulated companies for trouble spots that could disrupt the markets. That role would instead be placed in the hands of a council of regulators.
Bye, Chris. I hope you enjoyed that Senate seat.
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"Banks’ profits may get squeezed; Global leaders seek new limits on risk" by Simon Kennedy and Christine Harper, Bloomberg News | September 21, 2009Awwwwww, the POOR, BILLIONS-IN-PROFIT LAST QUARTER BANKS!!!!
Yeah, right, and I got a bridge to sell you!
NEW YORK - Global leaders meet this week seeking to deliver the broadest financial regulation overhaul since the 1930s, potentially threatening profits and stock prices of banks, from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Barclays PLC.....
Leaders travel to the Steel City amid voter disquiet after governments used public money to bail out banks, only to see many of them quickly return to profit and resume setting aside billions for bonuses....
Translation: You took a gang rape in the anus, America!
Goldman has demonstrated that higher capital and lower leverage don’t always mean reduced profits. The company still set a Wall Street profit record this year, making $3.4 billion on $13.8 billion of revenue in the three months that ended in June....
Related: The Galling Greed of Goldman Sachs
A crackdown could lower profitability by a third at Goldman, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank AG’s investment bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., analysts led by Kian Abouhossein said in a Sept. 9 report.
Awww, the poor, poor, looters!!!! I feels so sorries for thems!!!!!!
Deutsche Bank’s return on equity will probably tumble the most among the world’s largest investment banks, falling to 6.7 percent in 2011 from 10 percent today, the analysts said. Goldman’s return on equity will probably decline by 4.4 percentage points, and Barclays’ by 4.3 points. Spokespeople for Goldman, Deutsche and Barclays declined to comment.
Investors may suffer if financial companies have to issue more equity, said Charles Goodhart, a professor at the London School of Economics. “Banks will have to raise more capital by issuing more equity, so existing stocks will generally go down,’’ Goodhart said. The IMF estimated in April that US and European banks would need $875 billion in extra capital....
Think I could get a piece of that chump change?
The risk for politicians trying to persuade voters they haven’t let bankers off the hook is that the financial industry eventually finds a way around the regulatory revamp.
Well, when you WORK FOR THEM....
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University:
“We aren’t doing anything significant so far, and the banks are pushing back. The leaders of the G-20 will make some small steps forward, given the power of the banks, [and] “any step forward is a move in the right direction.’’
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Here is the final proof:
The new assessment of AIG’s prospects coincided with word that a senior House Democrat was planning to ask the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury about possibly easing the terms of AIG’s government debt. Representative Edolphus Towns of New York, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, began considering debt relief after meeting last week with Maurice R. Greenberg, AIG’s former CEO, according to a spokeswoman....
Yes, THEY DO WORK for the BANKSTERS!!!!
So HOW MUCH CAMPAIGN LOOT you taking in from this?
The research arm of Congress reported yesterday that American International Group’s financial condition had stabilized but said it was not clear whether the giant insurance group would ever be able to restructure and repay its federal rescue package.
So HOW MUCH YOU OUT, taxpayers?
And yet the s***ty MSM says you are MAKING a PROFIT off all this?
That's why they are considered SUCH LIARS in the eyes of the American people, and why THEIR INDUSTRY is TANKING!!!!
The Government Accountability Office said the $182 billion bailout had succeeded in breaking AIG’s calamitous fall and produced signs of improvement in its insurance businesses.
That is YOUR BILL (with interest), American taxpayers! Hope it was worth it.
But the company’s ability to rebuild itself and survive over the long term still depends on “market conditions and continued government support,’’ or factors largely beyond the company’s control.
Bullshit! Launder more drug money then!
Paying off the debt to the government will be hard, the report suggested, because raising the money involves selling off subsidiary businesses that make up 65 percent of the company and employ roughly 70,000 people.
All of sudden they care about employees? How SHAMELESS!!!!
HIDING BEHIND WORKERS so they can KEEP the TAX LOOT!!!!!
Meanwhile, the report suggested that AIG could soon be struggling to stay abreast of its debt.
Then LET THEM FAIL!!!! WHY throw GOOD MONEY after BAD!
It said, for instance, that the original terms of the rescue required AIG to pay 10 percent dividends on the preferred stock it issued to the Treasury. But with a dividend coming due in November, it was not clear whether AIG had the means to pay....
Yup, YOU GOT TAKEN to the CLEANERS, America -- and are still!
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RELATED:
".... AIG is not “too big to fail.” It is simply too important a repository of dirty money and dirty secrets to be exposed. Barack Obama and his administration know this.
AIG, one of the largest pools of investment capital on earth, is also one of the largest launderers of drug money and illegal funds for covert operations. Mike Ruppert’s investigation “AIG” (From The Wilderness, August 14, 2001) exhaustively deconstructed Greenberg and AIG, exposing continuing connections to covert operations, narco trafficking, money laundering, and AIG’s central role in the Wall Street/Washington power nexus.
AIG’s involvement in US covert operations stretches back to World War II, in its roots as C.V. Starr, the intelligence-related proprietary founded by OSS agent Cornelius Vander Starr. The Starr proprietary was connected to CIA/OSS figures Paul Helliwell and Tommy Corcoran. The notorious CIA fronts connected to C.V. Starr, including Civil Air Transport, Sea Supply, and Air America/Pacific Corp were exposed by Peter Dale Scott in his book Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina.
It is also a huge financial “pass-through,” whose counter-parties include Goldman Sachs and (not surprisingly) the same major financial institutions that are the top recipients of the US government’s TARP bailout.
It is no surprise that Barack Obama is the top recipient of AIG funds. AIG’s money also lines the pockets of other members of the Obama administration, and prominent members of Congress, including Senator Christopher Dodd, who has been accused of a sweetheart deal aiding AIG.
The man in the shadows
AIG’s former CEO, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, remains a pivotal figure connected to the institution, which he has fought against, sued, and publicly lambasts the officials in charge of his former company, his “baby.”
Greenberg is a member of world planning groups (Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission) and the Heritage Foundation, a former candidate for CIA director (1995). He is longtime friend of the Bush family. David Boies (of Bush v. Gore fame) is his attorney. So well-connected is Greenberg that he was considered as a nominee for CIA director by Bill Clinton in 1995. The profile of Greenberg in the June 20, 2005, edition of Time magazine, “Down But Not Out”, details Greenberg’s career as a government asset, foreign policy guru, and strongman.
In 2005, while still heading AIG, Greenberg was the target of multiple investigations into the orchestration of sham transactions, the inflation of reserves, illegal stock trades, deception, and book-cooking in an investigation by Eliot Spitzer, who declared that AIG was “a black box run with an iron fist by a CEO who did not tell the public the truth.” Spitzer’s probes of AIG, and other Wall Street malfeasance, was subsequently and conveniently stopped in its tracks, when Spitzer became entangled in a prostitution scandal.
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"Spitzer was likely a target of a White House and Wall Street operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling of the current financial market crisis."
Update:
"Bank-insurance fund dwindles; solutions elusive" by Daniel Wagner, Associated Press | September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is weighing several costly and never-before-used options to shore up the dwindling fund that insures bank deposits.
Maybe you could TALK to GOLDMAN!
It might borrow billions from healthy banks, or impose a special fee on the industry.
Borrowing would take dollars out of the private sector, making that money unavailable for investment. But charging the whole industry a fee could push weaker banks toward failure.
A third option, borrowing from the US Treasury, may be politically unpalatable.
Never stopped them before.
A fourth option would be to have banks pay their regular insurance premiums early. But this would not solve long-term needs....
Bank failures have drained the fund to its lowest level since 1992, in the depths of the savings-and-loan crisis. The fund insures deposit bank accounts of up to $250,000. Ninety-four banks have failed this year; hundreds more are expected to fall in coming years....
But the system is fine and we are recovering, yup.
Related: FDIC Preparing For Massive Bank Failures
Yup, she KNEW a LONG TIME AGO, and yet we get Fed pffffffft the whole time!
