The quote in my diary title is from L. William Seidman, one of the lawyers, investors and lobbyists who are absolutely giddy over the current economic recession, as described in an utterly nauseating story in today's New York Times. It turns out that a group of former officials in the administration of Bush Sr. who handled the savings and loan bailot of the early 1990s are now "back in vogue" as one of these slimebags put it, with the second Bush administration, lined up like pigs at the trough to make a bundle off of Americans' current economic misery.
The Times reports that a "tight-knit group" of former senior Bush Sr. officials (and a few Clintonites) who were central players in the S&L bailout are enjoying a "surge in new business" thanks to the country's latest economic crisis.
With $700 billion in bailout money up for grabs, and billions of dollars worth of bad debt or failed bank assets most likely headed for sale or auction, these former officials are helping their clients get a piece of the bailout money or the chance to buy, at fire-sale prices, some of the bank assets taken over by the federal government.
"It is a good time to be me," said John L. Douglas, a partner in Atlanta at the law firm Paul Hastings and a former lawyer for bank regulators who helped create the agency that administered the last federal bailout, the Resolution Trust Corporation.
Ah yes, it is good to be an opportunistic, greedy Bush crony, isn't it Mr. Douglas? One of ugliest things about the Times article is just how open and proud these cronies are about profiting off of other people's misery. Even worse, they are offering advice to the current administration and to Obama about how to manage the bailout at the same time that they are planning to profit from it.
Some of these former federal officials, like L. William Seidman, the first chairman of the R.T.C., are serving as advisers — sharing ideas with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama — even while they are separately directing investors or banks on how to best profit from this advice.
"It is an enormous market," said Mr. Seidman, who has already joined two such potential money-making efforts and is evaluating proposals to participate in a third. "I am enjoying this."
True to form for Bushonomics, while the majority of Americans suffer, a handful of Bush cronies will profit quite handsomely. We all need to realize that this result is not coincidental but intentional. There's a reason why the TARP money isn't going directly to help consumers. And there's a reason why Paulson et al. are being so secretive about what they're doing with the TARP money.
What is obvious to former R.T.C. officials is that, like the last go around, a great deal of money will be made by a select group of investors and business operators, particularly those with government contacts. The former government officials said in interviews that much of what is motivating them is a desire to help the nation recover from this latest stumble. But they acknowledge they intend to be among the winners who emerge.
"Fortunes will be made here, no doubt about it," said Gary J. Silversmith, one of more than a dozen former R.T.C. officials interviewed who now are involved in enterprises seeking to profit from bank bailouts.
The article points out that there are two key ways in which these slimebags plan to make money off of the bailout. The first, and currently most common, way is to help their clients get their greedy hands on some of the bailout cash.
Robert L. Clarke, controller of the currency under the first President Bush and a former Resolution Trust board member, has been advising banks throughout the South on how to get their share of the bailout money.
"I have been absolutely inundated," said Mr. Clarke, who now works at Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm based in Houston affiliated with the former New York mayor and presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The other big way to many money, of course, is to buy up troubled assets at bargain-basement prices and resell them for huge profits. Of course, you can't do this unless you have the money to buy up these assets, and - much more importantly - you have access to the government officials selling the assets. Many former RTC officials are working as lawyers or contractors to handles these transactions, and they are having the times of the life right now.
"It is a great time to be a banking lawyer," said Thomas P. Vartanian, a partner in the Washington office of Fried Frank, who is the former general counsel to the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which led a bank bailout effort in the 1980s.
The FDIC's planned sale of the assets of failed bank IndyMac has "turned into an alumni event" for veterans of the RTC era, the Times reports. All sorts of predatory slime is coming out from under the rocks, including John Oros, who chaired the Federal Savings and Loan Advisory Council that advised bank regulators during the S&L crisis. Oros is jumping for joy right now amid the economic wreckage.
In the space of one weekend in September (Oros) explored buying out the troubled insurer A.I.G. and worked with Bank of America on an aborted acquisition of Lehman Brothers. Then he advised Bank of America on its last-minute switch to buy Merrill Lynch before Lehman’s collapse hammered Wall Street.
Although the financial meltdown is a disaster for the country, Mr. Oros said, "the opportunity going forward is unprecedented. It is fantastic. It is as if I had been training for this for the last 40 years of my career."
So as you struggle to make your mortgage payment or figure out how to keep food on your family's table now that you've lost your job, you can take solace in the fact that your economic struggles are making a few people very, very happy.