I've been watching the 'New Fake Pecora Commission' aka as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission 'pretending' to ask 'serious and hard hitting questions' to the likes of Alan Greenspan and other Banking and Wall Street Wizards.
Phil Angelides — former California State Treasurer and Chair of the FCIC, — failed (on purpose, in my opinion) to elicit any admission of fault from Greenspan. As I watched Greenspan blatantly and openly lie about his lack of oversight and mandate to 'Regulate Wall Street and the Banks' I was horrified, but not surprised at his arrogant unwillingness to take any responsibility what so ever, for 'ruining the economy' and putting millions of people out of work, their homes, stealing their pensions/savings' ...the man is a liar, a cheat and a thief, and should be sharing a jail cell with Bernie Madoff.
In addition to adding insult to injury Greenspan continually evaded personal blame for contributing to the financial crisis insisting that regulation (or the lack of regulation) is not the cause or the solution–instead, regulators are completely helpless in their roles as financial watchdogs. Finance, he claims, is simply too complex for regulators to keep up:
"We [government] are reaching far beyond our capacities," Greenspan said. " It’s not a simple issue of ‘Let’s regulate better.’ It’s a different world."
No Alan, that is a bunch of shit, and no one is buying that. You and Bernanke were warned dozens and dozens of times about the 'bubble,' about the out of control predatory lending, about how Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, AIG and JP Morgan and all the rest of them were 'cooking the books' with their CDS's and their 'risky' derivative madness and all you two idiots did, was look the other way, just like the SEC did, just like the OCC did, and just like all the other 'paid off Regulators' did.
You are not fooling anyone Mr. Greenspan, so STFU. Mr. Angelides is not fooling anyone either. His 'dog and pony show' is like watching a bunch of dogs and ponies shitting big turds on the carpets of anyone watching this farce play out. It is like watching 'Mr. Roberts Neighborhood' ...I keep waiting for Angelides to ask Robert Rubin, 'Can you spell FRAUD AND DISASTER Mr. Rubin (who walked away with a cool $240 million dollars from Citi-group)...who was cooking the books...while pretending to have $13 billion in 'exposure' when they really had over $50 billion 'off the books.'
The fact that this commission has issued no subpoenas even though it has the power to do so should tell you 'just how serious' Mr. Angelides really is about 'getting to the bottom' of any real accountability to the most outrageous scandal and 'cover up' that is permeating our government and key financial sectors.
Greenspan says that he was 'right' about 70 percent of the time. Well gee, I guess if my 'heart surgeon' was right about 70 percent of the time, or our 'Airline Pilots' were right about 70 percent of the time, or those that control our 'Nuclear Bombs' were right about 70 percent of the time, then Mr. Greenspan considers 'these odds' perfectly Okey Dokey. But, let me be the first to say that Mr. Greenspan has his figures a little bit backwards: He was wrong 70 percent of the time, and right 30 percent of the time, and as the nation's top Regulator and Steward of our economic 'Ship' he sunk the boat, hook line and sinker. If he had been our 'heart surgeon' we would have heard that old adage:
Well, the operation was a success, but the patient died.
The 30 percent that Mr. Liar Greenspan was 'right' about was just how all of his pals on Wall Street/the Banks managed to 'clean out our national treasury' and use the taxpayer to bail their asses out to the tune of over $121 billion dollars in bonuses, the highest amount ever paid to these crooks, during the most devastating and catastrophic financial meltdown in this history of our nation. 20 percent of our entire national wealth gone in the blink of an eye, because Mr. Liar Greenspan and Ben Bernanke's cozy relationship with Wall Street/the Banks is nothing more than the ultimate Ponzi Scheme.
I caught this little piece of video over at ZeroHedge today, and once again Congressman Grayson 'nails' Greenspan to the wall.
Dylan Ratigan, joined by the inimitable Alan Grayson and Bill Fleckenstein, does one of the best comprehensive summations of the where we are, how we got here, and why those responsible for the upcoming US default are still doing exactly what they were doing, through the enabling of the Federal Reserve. The logical question arises: when will someone finally do something about the situation the US is in right now? At this point pretty much everyone understands how the con works (and if you don't, watch this clip). Why do we allow a handful of corrupt politicians and a select few of Fed members unaccountable to anyone, coupled with a small group of Wall Street CEO, to determine the fate of this nation, and how long will democracy be trampled by those very people who claim to represent nothing but the people's interests? Watch this clip.
The Full Video on MSNBC would not embed properly, so below is a shorter version that is presented on zerohedge, which I urge you to watch.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
Thank you Congressman Grayson for telling it like it is: The Federal Reserve is indeed simply another 'tool' of Wall Street and the Banking industry and 'harakiri (腹切り, for Mr. Liar Greenspan would be 'the cowards way out' which is exactly what the man is: a dishonorable coward who is unwilling to accept responsibility or accountability for his blatant enabling of 'fraud' to take place in our key financial sectors that brought our nation to its knees.
At least Ms. Born was 'vindicated' when she had the opportunity to question the Liar - Greenspan (let us remember that President Clinton, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan ran Ms. Born out of town when she refused to back down from her repeated warnings about 'deregulation and risky derivative trading.)
Brooksley Born asked Greenspan today about his enthusiastic support for "over the counter derivatives" and reminded him that he fought against all regulations over the OTC derivative market. These derivatives, she pointed out, ballooned to having a $680 trillion notional value by 2008, and played a huge role in bringing down the nation's banking system. Greenspan's reply? "Credit default swaps did create problems," he admitted in one of his many monstrous understatements.
Greenspan gave no ground to Brooksley Born and dismissed her critique as if he were batting away a mosquito. He won't even acknowledge the obvious fact that he failed in his job and was partially responsible for setting up the system that produced the worst financial and economic crisis in a generation. Greenspan had all the tools necessary to have prevented the collapse (or at least mitigated its effects) if he weren't such an anti-regulatory zealot. He still affects the tone of the professor explaining complex ideas to a gaggle of college freshmen. Greenspan is not even a good Randian because he tries to hide his belief in Randism.
Born also pointed out that the problems with CDSs were known as far back as 1997. The federal government had to bail out AIG to the tune of $180 billion largely because of this unregulated market. Greenspan's answers were intellectually dishonest in the extreme. He still wants to blame a "few bad apples," instead of looking at his own role fanning the flames and pouring gasoline on the fire while the $8 trillion housing bubble was being pumped up. Greenspan said AIG's problems were with insurance, but Born countered that if CDSs had been insurance they would have been regulated. Greenspan is bullshitting us again. Born hit the nail on the head when she brought up the "Maestro's" extremist ideology. Your ideology has essentially been that markets are self-regulatory or that government regulation was either unnecessary or harmful, she said (paraphrasing). Did your belief in deregulation have any impact on your lack of regulation at the Fed? She pointed out that he served for eighteen years as Fed Chair and that the Fed utterly failed to prevent the housing bubble, or the predatory lending scandal, or the biggest banks from engaging in activities that brought them to the brink of collapse, and permitted the financial system and economy to fall into utter disaster; he also failed to prevent banks from becoming too big to fail - "Didn't the Fed fail in its mandate?" Born asked. But the only "flaw" Greenspan is willing to acknowledge is that he, like "virtually everyone" - academia, banks, etc., all missed it. Greenspan said that he "took a oath of office" and that his own Ayn Randian ideology played no role!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The devastation and destruction of our national economy and the people's lives that Mr. Liar Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have ruined, are both responsible for because they refused, after not just one, but repeated warnings over and over again from a plethora of regulators, banking and mortgage industries, and other sources, but it is now a matter of public record that both of these 'crooks' were warned. I have read so many articles about just how they were warned, and the only conclusion that anyone that is 'not delusional' can honestly come to, is that the Federal Reserve has always worked in collusion with Wall Street/the Banks specifically to 'rip off' Main Street and Americans every single opportunity they can get away with.
As Simon Johnson has stated: THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT.
But the financial crisis was no accident. It was the product of intentional action by a banking industry that knew exactly what it was doing. Of course, the bankers and their lobbyists did not intend to torpedo the global economy; but they did intend to create the unregulated environment that made the excesses of the past decade and the crisis of 2008 possible, and they used their growing political power to make it happen.
It was as if the government first repealed the laws against littering, eliminated all public sanitation services, and subsidized the consumption of bananas . . . and then the global economy slipped on a banana peel.
13 Bankers is not a story about complex financial instruments and economic models, although they crop up occasionally in its pages. It is a story about political power--about how one very large interest group made a large amount of money, amassed political power, and used that power to make even more money, placing our economic prosperity and our taxpayer dollars at risk in the process.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And that is the point of this diary: THEY WERE ALL 'COOKING THEIR BOOKS' AND ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT, because no one is holding them accountable, least of all this 'Fake Pecora Commission.'
I keep waiting for President Obama to give a national speech showing and telling the American people 'exactly' where he stands on 'real financial reform' and outlining his vision and strategy that would provide a strong message to Congress and the Federal Reserve as to putting the 'sane nuts and bolts' back into place, such as the Glass-Steagall Act, and standing behind a strong Consumer Protection Agency that has complete independence and 'teeth' and is not put under the Federal Reserve.
The messages we are now receiving from the White House, are mixed and confused at best. As an example:
Paul Volcker wants to roll the clock back and restore Glass Steagall, the 1933 rule that separated commercial banking from investment banking, but Team Obama is politely ignoring him. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, is giving a more strident version of the same message, calling on the biggest financial firms to be broken up, arguing that he sees no reason not to implement a Glass-Steagall type split.
But there is an interesting failure of all parties to discuss some of the real issues. First, a quick overview of the Volcker-Administration differences per the New York Times:
The aging Mr. Volcker (he is 82) has some advice, deeply felt...He wants the nation’s banks to be prohibited from owning and trading risky securities, the very practice that got the biggest ones into deep trouble in 2008. And the administration is saying no, it will not separate commercial banking from investment operations.... The Obama team, in contrast, would let the giants survive, but would regulate them extensively, so they could not get themselves and the nation into trouble again. While the administration’s proposal languishes, giants like Goldman Sachs have re-engaged in old trading practices, once again earning big profits and planning big bonuses. Mr. Volcker argues that regulation by itself will not work. Sooner or later, the giants, in pursuit of profits, will get into trouble. The administration should accept this and shield commercial banking from Wall Street’s wild ways. "The banks are there to serve the public," Mr. Volcker said, "and that is what they should concentrate on. These other activities create conflicts of interest. They create risks, and if you try to control the risks with supervision, that just creates friction and difficulties" and ultimately fails.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
After everything our country has been through as a result of the 'controlled fraud' and cowardly behavior of our government in now 'setting the stage with the new Peterson Deficit Hawks Commission' to come after Social Security and Medicare as a way to pay off the 'toxic debt' caused by the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, the Banks and the paid off Regulators. Paul Volcker is urging President Obama to 'raise taxes'...in other words: Double Down and figure out a way to 'finish off the Middle Class' once and for all.
The lies become more delusional by the day, like this one:
McClatchy:
DALLAS -- Weighing his words, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke declared Wednesday that the crisis that had the nation's financial system teetering on the brink of collapse is "largely behind us."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Mr. Bernanke should be made to stand up in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC with every single American who have lost their homes, their jobs (most of which, are NOT COMING BACK), the millions of people who were caught in the predatory lending schemes, the millions of people who lost their retirement and savings accounts, the millions of people who are now living in tent cities and tell them that 'the worst is largely behind us.' Because nothing could be further from the truth. Greenspan and Bernanke are directly responsible for ruining our national economy and millions of American's lives. They failed, and they failed miserably and the 'fraud and continued cover up' is being enabled by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Now, not later is the time for President Obama to give a national speech on real financial reform. The American people deserve to know where he stands, specifically and in detail prior to the 'financial reform battle' that is about to take shape.
And this comes down to LEADERSHIP on the part of President Obama. I sincerely hope that he does not make the same mistake he made on the Public Option, by leaving the American people in the 'dark' wondering as to where he stands on these vital issues.
Now that the 'real battle on financial reform' is about to begin, it is way past time for President Obama to stand up and LEAD. To give a sense of 'direction and sane decisions' on letting the 'taxpayers' on Main Street know without any shadow of a doubt, where he, as our President stands on these vital issues.
After everything the American people have been put through during the Great Heist of 2008, this is the very LEAST that President Obama should do. Stand up and be counted Mr. President. Stand up and LEAD Mr. President, give the American people and Congress a clear and concise 'plan of action' to bring sanity and a sense of fair play by helping to 'shape the legislation' NOW rather than LATER, when it will not matter.
All it takes is courage, Mr. President, all it takes is 'doing the right thing.'
I'd like to urge all of you to go to the http://fcic.gov/... page and note the area called: Contact Us. There is a place to leave your comments. Perhaps you have a few 'choice words of wisdom' to leave for the 'Fake Pecora Commission' such as why the hell they haven't bothered to call in Mr. Cox from the SEC, and why the hell they haven't used one single subpoena or perhaps you have 'questions on accountability' that you would like to leave for Mr. Angelides.
If this 'Commission' does not hear from everyday working Americans, the taxpayers who bailed these crooks and liars out, and are 'still' on the hook to do so in the future, then Mr. Angelides will get away with 'rubber stamping' the 'NOBODY SAW IT COMING' LIE. Don't let him do that, please.
There is a war going on in our nation. The war is between the Federal Reserve, Wall Street/the Bankers and the paid off Regulators vs. the American Middle Class. If we refuse to stand up and be counted, to hold President Obama's feet to the fire, and let them know we expect accountability and real reform, to once again protect Americans, then what we can expect is more of the same: Crooks and liars and thieves, who are getting away with Economic Terrorism and destroying our nation's middle class.
Thanks.