There's this nagging question that just keeps coming back to me about the bailouts to all the 'surviving' Banks and especially Goldman Sachs, since they haven't missed a beat. I keep asking, how the hell did they do this? Most of the increase in our federal deficit this past year is specifically due to bailing out all the banks and their Wall Street pals, (with our money)while trying to save what is left of our tanking economy that they nearly destroyed.
So when I think about Goldman Sachs raking in $3.44 billion bucks in profits this quarter alone, while the US deficit went over a $1 trillion dollars for the first time in the nation's history, (and appears to now be heading towards doubling that figure in before the budget year is out,) I keep going back to Goldman Sachs and the other 100 'secret banks' the Federal Reserve doled out money to. It wasn't just our '$700 Billion' that is in play here.
But since we cannot get any answers from the Federal Reserve, some of this information must be gleaned by the likes of us little old taxpayers who bailed their asses out.
In case you haven't seen the OCC Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives for 2009, I think you might be interested in seeing exactly what is being hidden off the balance sheets that most American are not aware of.....try $47 Trillion dollars of derivatives backed by the government or rotting in some toxic pool that nobody wants anyone to know about, or more important wants you to know about.
I mean, it's not like 'we' the people get a copy of the OCC report in the mail lodged between our National Geographic and Vanity Fair Magazines...... even if we are the ones that bailed all the crooks and liars out.
Nahhh, we gotta go looking for that little piece of information. Here it is if you want to take a look at it.
http://www.occ.gov/...
Here is some of the basic information that you need to know for this discussion in general:
* The notional value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks increased $1.6 trillion in the first quarter, or 1%, to $202.0 trillion, due to the continued migration of investment bank derivatives business into the commercial banking system.
* U.S. commercial banks generated record revenues of $9.8 billion trading cash and derivative.
* instruments in the first quarter of 2009, compared to a $9.2 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.
* Net current credit exposure decreased 13% to $695 billion.
* Derivative contracts remain concentrated in interest rate products, which comprise 84% of total.
* derivative notional values. The notional value of credit derivative contracts decreased by 8% during the quarter to $14.6 trillion.
And the Hall of Greedy Bastards from Hell who would kill their own mothers for a sub-prime loan deal? You'll recognize the names of the absolute worst derivatives offenders:
1 JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. $81,108,352
2 BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION $77,874,726
3 GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. $47,749,124
4 MORGAN STANLEY $39,125,255
5 CITIGROUP INC. $31,715,734
The OCC states that 'we the people'(or the Banks, or the FED) have $ 47 friggin trillion dollars in bad toxic dept that these 'Addicted Gamblers' deregulating 'profoundly irresponsible' (Obama's words for them) have jacked up. I don't know about you, but I sure haven't heard that 'little piece of news' slipped into the media somewhere between Michael Jackson's Toxic Drug Report and reading about the famous 'Oscar Meyer Weiner' truck running into a house in Wisconsin.
$47 trillion dollars....OMFG. Why does that sound like all the money in all the world to me.............and it's all from those 'fake credit swaps mortgage crunching up bullshit David X. Li Fake economic theory from hell' gambling crash that no one, I mean no one is ever going to be able to pay off. Sigh. Hitting my head again a brick wall feels good right now. I wish I could put a curse on Hank Paulson and all these crooks to make their anuses itch (in public) all the time, 24/7 until they all just ends up in an 'anus itching mental hospital' for the criminally insane.
Back to Goldman Sachs - Why is this top dog investment 'team' doing so well? As Robert Sheer puts it so well:
Well, because that was the plan, as devised by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Remember that Lehman Brothers, Goldman's competitor, was allowed to go bankrupt. The Paulson crowd wouldn't let Lehman change its status to that of a bank holding company and thus qualify for federal funds; soon afterward, Goldman was granted just such a deal, worth a quick $10 billion. Much is now made of Goldman paying back part of its bailout money, but forgotten is the $12.9 billion that Goldman got as its cut of the $180 billion AIG payoff. That is money that will not be paid back. Goldman is considered a very smart bank because it was early in reducing its exposure to the mortgage derivatives that in large part caused the meltdown. However, it had done much to expand the market and continued to sell suspect derivatives to unwary buyers as sound investments, even as Goldman divested. The firm still holds $1.85 billion in real estate and lost $499 million in the previous quarter on bad loans, but made up for it by playing the vulture role and issuing high-interest debt to governments and companies made desperate by the recession that the financial gimmicks of the banks brought on in the first place.
And Goldman was not just another bank. Before Paulson ran the Treasury Department, another former Goldman head, Robert Rubin, pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall controls on banking activity. While some now play down the significance of this radical deregulation, not so Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein -- at least not back in June 2007, when the markets were still doing well. "If you take an historical perspective," Blankfein told the New York Times by way of explaining his company's spectacular success at the time, "we've come full circle, because that is exactly what the Rothschilds or J.P. Morgan the banker were doing in their heyday. What caused an aberration was the Glass-Steagall Act." That 1933 act was repealed in a law signed by President Bill Clinton at Rubin's urging, and in the following eight years Goldman Sachs recorded a 265 percent growth in its balance sheet. "Back then," the Wall Street Journal reports, "Goldman was churning out profits by trading credit derivatives, speculating on currencies and oil and placing big bets [on] the roaring stock market." Big bets made in a casino designed by Goldman, which now makes money off loans to the victims. High on the list of victims are state governments that have to turn to Goldman for money because the federal government that saved the banks won't do the same for the states, which have watched their tax bases shrink because of the banking meltdown. As the WSJ noted, "issuing debt to ailing governments" is now a growth industry for Goldman.
Why didn't the federal government just lend the money to the states? Why was all the money thrown at Wall Street instead of needy homeowners or struggling school systems? Because the federal government works for Goldman and not for us. Indeed, when it comes to the banking bailout, Goldman Sachs is the government. So much so that last fall the New York Times ran a story, headlined "The Guys From 'Government Sachs,' " that stated: "Goldman's presence in the [Treasury] department and around the federal response to the financial bailout is so ubiquitous that other bankers and competitors have given the star-studded firm a new nickname: Government Sachs." One of those stars was Stephen Friedman, another former head of Goldman. Friedman was both a director of the company and chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank when he helped work out the details of the Wall Street bailout. The president of the N.Y. Fed at the time, Timothy Geithner, now secretary of the treasury, requested a conflict-of-interest waiver that allowed Friedman to buy more Goldman Sachs stock, and Friedman ended up with 98,600 shares. At market close on Tuesday that was worth $14,756,476. That's nothing -- three years ago, the 50 top Goldman execs made $20 million each, and this year could be better. They're not hurting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Yes, Goldman Sachs and the their 'friends' at the Federal Reserve. No one knows how much the Federal Reserve has given them, and no one will, because guess what? That's none of our business. Hey, it's only our money, it's only our country, it's only our government....
Isn't it?
But the tide is changing now. No more 'conspiracy theory' excuses from the likes of Goldman Sachs or the Federal Reserve. The jig is up, and everyone knows it.
There is a growing huge bi-partisan support for both Bernie Sanders bill S604 and HR 1207 to put some Sunshine on Auditing the Federal Reserve who failed us miserably during the financial meltdown. Alan Greenspan changed the interests rates 18 times to keep that real estate bubble going and that now leaves $47 trillion dollars in toxic dept floating around in our financial systems caused by a bunch of out of control Wall Street Banksta Ganstas, who are the ONLY ones hording the money that was literally stolen from us, and who continue, unabated, unashamed and ruthlessly raping the American people every chance they can and without a doubt will continue unless we stop them. Let's remember that Goldman Sachs is at the top of that list and their next blood bath is going to be the Cap and Trade business where they've already got the inside track, as usual.
This video shows the wide support of the FED under Fire, and I urge all of you to call your representatives to support S604 and HR 1207. Many of your representatives may already be on the list of sponsors. 267 House members - 55 percent of the House are already signed up, and that list is growing.
$47 Trillion - wow what a party these assholes had and who in the hell do you think is going to CONTINUE to pay for it as they continue their rampage with no new regulations in sight? It is up to us to stop the insanity, because if we don't do it, no body else will.
President Obama wants to make the Federal Reserve the 'all powerful Oz' and god only knows what's really behind that idea, since we the 'peasants and serfs' and not allowed to see what is behind the curtain.
Pick up the phone and call this week. The secrecy has got to end. The Federal Reserve is not the CIA, (or maybe they are the 'financial CIA') but it has become very clear that what they are is a conduit for Wall Street and the idea of making them the new 'All Powerful Regulator' is nothing short of complete capitulation to the Corporate madness and power that had brought our nation to where it is today.