Ex-TARP overseer denounces
US government cover-up of Wall Street crimes
31 July 2012
In interviews prompted by the publication of his new book (Bailout) on the $700 billion
US bank bailout scheme—the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—the former
special inspector general for the program, Neil Barofsky, has denounced bank
regulators and top officials in the Bush and Obama administrations for covering
up Wall Street criminality both before and after the financial crash of
September 2008.
In an interview last Thursday with the Daily
Ticker blog,
Barofsky accused Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner of facilitating the banks’
manipulation of Libor, the global benchmark interest rate, when he was
president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2007-2008, prior to his
joining the Obama administration. Recently published documents show that as
early as 2007, Geithner knew that London-based Barclays Bank was submitting
false information to the Libor board to conceal its financial weakness.
Geithner merely
wrote to the Bank of England suggesting certain changes in the Libor
rate-setting mechanism, but made no public statement and failed to notify
regulators at the US Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, even though major US
banks were alleged to be involved in the rate-rigging fraud.
In his interview,
Barofsky rejected Geithner’s claims to have acted appropriately. Calling the
Libor scandal a “global conspiracy to fix one of the most important interest
rates in the world,” the former TARP inspector general said, “[Geithner] heard
this information and looked the other way. Geithner and other regulators should
be held accountable, they should be fired across the board. If they knew about
an ongoing fraud, and they didn’t do anything about it, they don’t deserve to
have their jobs. I hope to see people in handcuffs.”
In the same interview and others given over the past week,
Barofsky has spoken in scathing terms of the domination of Washington by Wall
Street and the subservience of both major parties to the financial elite. “It
was shocking,” he told the Daily Ticker, “how much control the big banks
had over their own bailout and how they often would dictate terms of some of
the TARP programs and the overwhelming deference shown by Treasury officials to
the banks. I saw no differences in these core issues between the Bush and Obama
administrations.”
In an interview
with CBS News’ Charlie Rose on July 23, Barofsky referred to key elements of
his account of TARP, including the lack of any restrictions on the banks’ use
of bailout funds and the fact that they were not even required to tell the
government what they were doing with the taxpayer money that had been handed to
them.
“When I got to
Washington,” he said, “I saw that it had been hijacked by a small group of very
powerful Wall Street banks... It’s not Democratic, it’s not Republican, it’s
across political barriers… [Geithner] oversaw a policy that saw our largest
banks, the too-big-to-fail institutions, get bigger than ever and more
powerful, more politically connected.”
In his book,
Barofsky derides the cynicism of the claims made when President Bush, candidate
Obama and congressional leaders of both parties were seeking to ram through the
TARP law over massive popular opposition that the bailout would benefit Main
Street as well as Wall Street. He notes, for instance, that the government’s
mortgage modification program—billed as a means to help millions of
homeowners—has disbursed only $3 billion out of the $50 billion set aside for
it.
Barofsky, who
served as the Treasury Department’s special inspector general for TARP until
his resignation last February, is well placed to document the collusion of the
government with the banks. He issued numerous reports while in his TARP post
exposing the lack of any real government oversight over the taxpayer money
funneled to the banks, as well as decisions ensuring that Wall Street firms
such as Goldman Sachs recouped tens of billions of dollars in potential losses
at the public’s expense.
Deprived of any enforcement powers under the TARP law drafted by
Wall Street lawyers and ratified by Congress, Barofsky was simply ignored by
Geithner and the Obama administration and his reports were largely buried by
the media.
Barofsky’s book has
received a similar response from the media, as did reports issued last year by
the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations documenting in detail fraudulent and illegal activities by
the banks in the lead-up to the financial crash of 2008.
Four years after the crisis precipitated by the banks, not a
single top banker has been prosecuted, let alone convicted. Meanwhile, the same
bankers, and the government officials who shielded them and ensured that they
grew even richer, are demanding that American workers accept the “new normal”
of wages at $13 or less, along with the destruction of pensions, health care
and working conditions.
For all of his
exposures, Barofsky, a Democrat, fails to draw the requisite conclusions,
suggesting that popular rage can “sow the seeds for the types of reform that
will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabucks.”
The criminality of the financial system and the complicity of all
of the official institutions are not, however, mere aberrations or blemishes on
an otherwise healthy system. They are expressions of the putrefaction and
failure of the capitalist system itself. Its mortal crisis is reflected above
all in the ever-greater scale of social inequality.
There is no way to
break the power of the financial oligarchy outside of a mass working class
movement armed with a socialist program, including the seizure of the
ill-gotten wealth of the financial mafia and the nationalization of the banks
and major corporations under the democratic control of the working population.
Andre Damon and
Barry Grey
The authors also recommend:
JPMorgan scandal: The tip of the iceberg
[17 July 2012]
[17 July 2012]
Libor scandal exposes banks’ rigging of global rates
[6 July 2012]
[6 July 2012]
THERE’S NO ONE IN AMERICAN HISTORY THAT HAS WORKED FOR
CRIMINAL BANKSTERS MORE THAN BARACK OBAMA! THERE’S NO ONE THAT HAS TAKEN MORE
MONEY FROM BANKSTERS THAN OBAMA.
DURING IS FIRST 2 YEARS IN OFFICE, BANKSTERS MADE MORE THAN
ALL 8 UNDER BUSH! AND NOT ONE HAS BEEN PROSECUTED!
Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption,
and the Hijacking of America [Hardcover]
BY CHARLES H. FERGUSON
Book Description
Publication Date: May 22,
2012
Charles
H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside
Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by
step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political
influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators’
path to conquest.
Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.
· Finance has become America’s dominant industry, while manufacturing, even for high technology industries, has nearly disappeared.
· The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with the widespread fraud that caused the housing bubble going completely unpunished.
· Federal tax collections as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in sixty years, with the wealthy and highly profitable corporations enjoying the greatest tax reductions.
· Most shockingly, the United States, so long the beacon of opportunity for the ambitious poor, has become one of the world’s most unequal and unfair societies.
If you’re smart and a hard worker, but your parents aren’t rich, you’re now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York.
This radical shift did not happen by accident.
Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite. It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers. It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed “reforms” installed after the collapse of 2008.
Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite. Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimes—there is no other word—committed in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis. And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.
Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.
· Finance has become America’s dominant industry, while manufacturing, even for high technology industries, has nearly disappeared.
· The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with the widespread fraud that caused the housing bubble going completely unpunished.
· Federal tax collections as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in sixty years, with the wealthy and highly profitable corporations enjoying the greatest tax reductions.
· Most shockingly, the United States, so long the beacon of opportunity for the ambitious poor, has become one of the world’s most unequal and unfair societies.
If you’re smart and a hard worker, but your parents aren’t rich, you’re now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York.
This radical shift did not happen by accident.
Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite. It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers. It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed “reforms” installed after the collapse of 2008.
Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite. Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimes—there is no other word—committed in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis. And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.
Guest
Reviewer: Simon Johnson on Predator Nation by Charles H. Ferguson
Simon
Johnson is coauthor of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the
Next Financial Meltdown and White House Burning: The Founding Fathers,
Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You.
Predator Nation demolishes the view that the global financial
crisis was merely some sort of freak accident. Charles Ferguson makes a
convincing case that the world’s banking system was brought to the brink of
complete collapse in 2008–09 by a virulent combination of unchecked greed and
criminal behavior.
This is an epic crime story with an apparently clean getaway,
courtesy of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Both
presidents proved unwilling to hold anyone to account—or even to launch
meaningful investigations.
Leading bankers walked away with billions of dollars in
unjustified compensation. The costs imposed on the rest of us can be measured
in the trillions of dollars.
Predator Nation provides a roadmap for prosecution,
systematically covering the banks involved, the names of culpable executives,
the obvious crimes, the precise laws broken, and the evidence hiding in plain
sight. No doubt it will be widely ignored by our legal officials.
Ferguson’s points are also intensely political. Reckless behavior
by bankers can be traced back to the bipartisan consensus around deregulating
finance in recent decades. This result is a socially destructive industry with
immense political power—and capable of defeating all attempts at meaningful
reform. The continued predominance of rogue finance is greatly facilitated by
its effective corruption of American academia and many so-called “independent
experts” (documented in Charles Ferguson’s Oscar-winning movie, Inside Job.)
Big banks hold American politics in a death grip. To understand
this—and to start to think about how to break this grip—read Predator Nation
and give a copy to everyone you know.
*
THE
BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT PROMISED HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS NO real
REGULATION, NO PRISON TIME, AND UNLIMITED PILLAGING OF THE NATION’S ECONOMY!
DESPITE
THE DEVASTATION THESE BANKSTERS HAVE CAUSED AMERICANS, THEIR PROFITS SOARED
GREATER DURING OBAMA’S FIRST TWO YEARS, THAN ALL EIGHT UNDER BUSH. SO HAVE
FORECLOSURES!
Records show that
four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry
giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207)
and Citigroup ($358,054).
*
“Barack Obama's favorite
banker faces losses of $2 billion and
possibly more -- all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't
trading in exotic financial instruments that he has so ardently lobbied
Congress not to regulate.”
Is JPMorgan's Loss a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Posted: 05/16/2012 4:49 pm
That sound of
shattered glass you've been hearing is the iconic portrait of Jamie Dimon
splintering as it hits the floor of JPMorgan Chase. As the Good Book says,
"Pride goeth before a fall," and the sleek, silver-haired,
too-smart-for-his-own-good CEO of America's largest bank has been turning every
television show within reach into a confessional booth. Barack Obama's favorite
banker faces losses of $2 billion and
possibly more -- all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't
trading in exotic financial instruments that he has so ardently lobbied
Congress not to regulate.
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