Monday, March 15, 2010

AIG Transfers $46 Million From the Taxpayers to Derivatives Traders

Make no mistake about it, that $46 million being paid out to the funny money traders who cost this country $100's of billions is YOUR taxpayer funds.  And it even has Obama's stamp of approval on it via his beloved Pay Czar, Kenneth Feinberg.  They dressed up the pig with lipstick by explaining that Feinberg insist they cut back the bonus pool by $21 million to $46 million - to be paid to 70 people.  That's just great except AIG is still bleeding billions every quarter, so all it means is that Geithner/Obama are transferring $21 million less of YOUR money to losers.  Feel good about that?  AIG should have been allowed to fail, and it would have thankfully taken down Goldman and others with it.  We might be on the road to serious recovery and reform if that path had been followed....think about that the next time you see an article about huge cuts to education and all of the people outside of Wall Street struggling to feed their families...

10 comments:

  1. Yes, Dave agreed. But the trick is that Goldman was the top contributor into Mr. Obama's presidential campaign, so the principle "Do not bite the Hand that Feeds you" just worked out...

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  2. Yup. Not only that, 10 of the top 15 individual contributors to the Democratic Party were current or ex-Goldman managing directors/partners.

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  3. There are lots of complaints about how the money system works. What is essentially a real problem and many years have indicated that it is very scaresely solvable is that the humans demonstrate such extreme and negative behaviour (drinking, drugs, violence, being aggressive, exceptionally rude, stupid beyond belief, primitive to the point of Ah! No words etc, etc) and at the same time somehow (also very silly indeed) we still expect decency, honesty, strive for fairness and common sense. I see those two essentially an impossible proposition. Either you genetically modify at least 90% of humans or ... or just keep dreaming of a better world.

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  4. Only 46 million? They are being nice to us for once.

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  5. Repo transactions are what makes the world go 'round. They're the "oil" in the engine, so to speak. When two financial parties have various trades they're settling for one another (as Citi was for Lehman in the FX markets) the posting collateral to obtain short-term cash is how one secures the clearing of these trades. There's nothing magical about them, but without them the common, every day occurrence of transactions in the marketplace simply stops.

    Specifically:

    Contributing to the difficulty of finding collateral that was agreeable to bothparties was the fact that Fleming told Citi that Lehman repoed out for cash all of the marketable securities in its liquidity pool.

    That one sentence right there says it all.

    Doesn't remind you of JPM and their coming cash crunch?

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  6. I would bet the Fed will monetize away any of JPM's issues.

    It sounds like LEH started using toxic assets as repo collateral toward the end.

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  7. I notice Ted Butler says on King World News that JPM have not increased their silver shorts and for now the other 3 major are giving them cover by shorting 5,000 contracts last week. JPM looks like it has run out of ammo and appetite in the silver market. Doesn't look good to me.
    http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast_Gold+/Broadcast_Gold+.html

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  8. Until everyone quits their bitching and shows up forcefully then nothing will change - except more bitching.

    You fools crack me up, always the first to complain but then are so reserved you don't seek real solutions.

    Real solutions are personal accountability such as ass beatings of those getting bonuses for stealing your democracy!

    Until there is personal risk, there will be nothing but mass looting and mass complaints.

    Spare me...

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  9. We must be getting very close to economic implosion as TPTB will need to redirect the masses via some event. Like an attack on Iran as seen at Jesse's Cafe.

    They use large, created events to direct the affairs of humanity. Here are a few from history.

    Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
    Sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
    The Reichstag Fire
    Pearl Harbor
    9-11

    Yes, the human condition has its faults but, ultimately, it all boils down to the control of money.

    Joe M.

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  10. @Anonymous and Joe: agree completely.

    Anonymous: It's tough to go out and start something on your own. Right now there's not enough pain or people in the streets yet to get something meaningful organized.

    If Pelosi jams HC thru the House w/out a vote - that may change because there's a lot of angry rednecks in the coutryside of Virginia and Maryland who are heavily armed and pissed.

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