While President Obama, who ran on a platform of change, spent his state of the union address kowtowing to Wall Street and reciting corporatespeak (America needs to "win the future") in what one commentator called a "prayer to the free market", his weasel treasury secretary squirmed in the audience. Tim Geithner had already done much of what he came to D.C to do (sabotage financial reform) but just because Obama sold out doesn't mean everyone has.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission leaked parts of its report to the press and it's brutal:
The 2008 financial crisis was an "avoidable" disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a Congressional inquiry.
And it goes further as they name names including Wall Street's favorite flunkie.
Timothy F. Geithner, who was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the crisis and is now President Obama’s Treasury secretary, also comes under criticism; the report finds that the New York Fed "could have clamped down" on excesses by Citigroup in the lead-up to the crisis and, just a month before Lehman’s collapse, was "still seeking information" on the vulnerabilities from Lehman’s exposure to more than 900,000 derivatives contracts.
Let's not forget AIG either there Turbo Timmy.
The commission also takes aim at everyone's favorite PRIVATE Bank that pretends it's a PUBLIC Agency.
The report itself finds fault with two Fed chairmen: Alan Greenspan, a skeptic of regulation who led the central bank as the housing bubble expanded, and his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, who did not foresee the crisis but then played a crucial role in the response. It criticizes Mr. Greenspan for advocating financial deregulation and cites a "pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages" under his leadership as "the prime example" of government negligence.
Not the Ben Bernanke!
Don't worry it's a bi-partisan screw up (like that helps anything anyway).
Democrats also come under fire. The 2000 decision to shield over-the-counter derivatives from regulation, made during the last year of President Bill Clinton’s term is called "a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis."
The FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy has always been bi-partisan. The only people not in on the scam are the American people. Woops.
Oh, but don't worry Obama is making sure America "wins the future" no need to look at the past - SUCKERS!