Central Planner Exits Stage Left

And cash from clunkers begins...

Ok, so I'm having me one of those blond days today

Does the cash for clunkers, stand for the excess crap the banks can't off load
or is the clunker part pertaining to the fraudulent MBS that never got registered?
There had to have been a crap load of those. Karl said that the banks only had 30 days after they were bought. I know there was a heck of alot of lawsuits citing fraud.
Doesn't the FED buying 40 billion a month of MBS kind of get the Investment banks out of a pretty tight spot?
Isn't the American taxpayer really picking up tab for the Mortgage Investment Banks gambling debts again?
It seems to me they are.....

An Irishman Speaks His Mind

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/irishman-speaks-his-mind

A true spokesman for "the Peoples" opinion.


Somehow we think the distinguished Irish gentleman will not make it on CNBC: in under two minutes he explains everything there is to know about modern kleptocratic ponzinomics.

Wall Street Banks Are Doing Less and Less Good For Society, Says John Cassidy

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/wall-street-banks-are-doing-less-and-less-good-for-society-says-john-cassidy-535678.html?tickers=%5EDJI,%5EGSPC,GS,XLF,ms,skf,skf&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=



According to John Cassidy, Wall Street banks are supposed to act “like a power utility… except they provide money rather than power.”

But what happens when the power utility, instead of focusing on how best to manage and distribute power, decides to focus on using customer funds to make a quick buck?

The answer, as Cassidy explains in his recent New Yorker article, is a financial system pushed to the brink of collapse.

As he explains to Aaron, Wall Street - at its best – serves an important and necessary purpose: to raise capital for businesses, which in turn fuels the economy, creates jobs and improves the overall standard of living. Lloyd Blankfein famously called it "God's Work." The problem is, investment banking isn't the focus anymore.

Instead, the banks engage in a socially worthless pursuit of profits, via trading, creating huge amounts of risk for everyone – except the actual players of the game.

As Cassidy writes in the New Yorker, the banks have “turned themselves from businesses whose profits rose and fell with the capital-raising needs of their clients into immense trading houses whose fortunes depend on their ability to exploit day-to-day movements in the markets.”

And the problem is that, even after

Foreclosure Detectives Hunt for Lies , look who's doing the looking!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559504575631110278708250.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection



URBANDALE, Iowa—In two squat, suburban office-park buildings here, Richard Barrent is digging through loan files that could help decide who pays for the mortgage-paperwork debacle.

The former Wells Fargo & Co. quality-assurance manager's two-year-old company is part of a cottage industry of loan detectives obsessed with detecting fraud, misrepresentations and violations of underwriting guidelines. Such discoveries can be used as ammunition to force banks and other lenders to buy back loans from bond insurers, holders of mortgage-backed securities and other customers of forensic loan-review firms.

"There is a growing interest across the board" for such reviews, says Charles Cacici, managing member of Risk Management Group, a Brooklyn, N.Y., company that also scours mortgage files for problems. Competitors include Digital Risk, Clayton Holdings and Allonhill.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703628204575619000289073686.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

So what's wrong with this picture>
The FDIC is now going to investigate all your local banks that have gone bust, but chooses to look the other way over the fraudulent activities of the Investment Banks.
Only in America folks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is conducting about 50 criminal investigations of former executives, directors and employees at U.S. banks that have failed since the start of the financial crisis.


In an interview, Fred W. Gibson, deputy inspector general at the FDIC, which works with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate crime at financial institutions, said the probes involve failed banks of all sizes in cities across the U.S. The FDIC is also ramping up civil claims to recover money from former bankers at busted lenders. He declined to identify any of the people or banks under investigation.

Jim Willie:Imminent Big Bank Death Spiral

http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/oct282010.html

It's time to think real hard kids.
We have a problem that can not go on.
And everybody is talking about it, except the government, the investment banks the FED and Wall Street, and why aren't they talking about it?
Because they created it.

The mortgage & foreclosure scandal runs so deep that ordinary observers can conclude the US financial foundation is laced with a cancer detectable by ordinary people. The metastasis is visible from the distribution of mortgage bonds into the commercial paper market, money market funds, the bank balance sheets, pension funds under management, foreign central banks, and countless financial funds across the globe. Some primary features of the cancerous tissue material are allegations of mortgage bond fraud, major securities violations, absent linkage to property title, income tax evasion, forged foreclosure documents, duplicate property linkage to single mortgage bonds, NINJA (no income, no job or assets) loans to unqualified buyers, and more. In fact, more is revealed it seeems each passing week toward additional facie to high level and systemic fraud. The world is watching. The growing international reaction will be amplified demand for Gold, from impressions that the USDollar & USEconomy have RICO racketeering components extending to Wall Street banks and Fannie Mae mortgage repositories.

The centerpiece question, when allegation of the US bond fraud is coupled with European sovereign debt distress, comes down to WHAT IS MONEY? The answer is Gold & Silver and not much of anything else. Other assets like crude oil or farmland are effective hedges against tainted money, but when they contain debt tethers, they too are

The vast monetization schemes are set to come into motion for the bond market in general. The objects are hardly just USGovt debt securities, not even just Fannie Mae mortgage securities, but big bank Corporate Bonds as well. The schemes have painted the USDollar in a light with a RICO tint, as in racketeering, sanctioned by the US finance ministry and shielded from prosecution by US legal authorities and regulatory bodies. Worse still, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has permitted flagrant accounting fraud to the big dead US banks. Since April 2009, they have been permitted to declare any value they wish on their toxic balance sheets. That has enabled them to take advantage of USGovt largesse, direct USFed redemption of toxic bonds, called widely banker welfare. That has enabled them to tap the 0% money tree that produces carry trade profits. The only stipulation was the banks have been required to place their excess cash at the USFed itself, which thereby hid the central bank's insolvency, and distracted attention from the absence of Loan Loss Reserves for the banks. Details on the USFed balance sheet, and big bank vulnerability to further losses, are provided in the October Hat Trick Letter. Toss in the High Frequency Trading schemes, and the US financial markets look to contain more crooked venues than the Las Vegas casinos. The USDollar lies at great risk in the process.

A Paralyzed Fed Defers Decision On Monetary Policy To Primary Dealers In An Act That Can Only Be Classified As Treason

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/paralyzed-fed-defers-decision-monetary-policy-primary-dealers

I think it's safe to say the FED has no idea of what it's doing.
The reason being, that it has to ask the investment banks how big QE2 should be and how often they think it should be monitored.
Or maybe they're just taking an order for the next catered event in the "to big to fail" investment banking series.
I seriously guess they are to big, since it looks as though they're are running the show.
Hell they don't even bother to hide it any more.


the New York Fed has issued a survey to Primary Dealers, which asks for suggestions on the size of QE2 as well as the time over which it would be completed. It also asks firms how often they anticipate the Fed will re-evaluate the program, and to estimate its ultimate size. This is nothing short of a stunning indication of three things: i) that the Fed is most likely completely paralyzed due to the escalating confrontation between the Hawks and the Doves, and that not even Bernanke believes has has sufficient clout to prevent what Time magazine has dubbed a potential opening salvo into a chain of events that could lead to civil war: in effect Bernanke will use the PD's decision as a trump card to the Hawks and say the market will plunge unless at least this much money is printed, ii) that the Fed is effectively asking the Primary Dealers to act as underwriters on whatever announcement the Fed will come up with, and thus prop the market, and, most importantly, iii) that the PDs will most likely demand the highest possible amount, using Goldman's $2-4 trillion as a benchmark, and not only frontrun the ultimate issuance knowing full well what the syndicate of 18 will decide in advance of what the final amount will be, but will also ramp stocks on November 3 to make the actual QE announcement seem like a surprise. This also means that the Primary Dealers of America, which include among them such hedge funds as Goldman Sachs, such mortgage frauds as Bank of America, such pathological liars as Wells Fargo, such insolvent foreign banks as Deutsche, RBS, UBS and RBS, and such middle-market excuses for banks as Jefferies, are now in control of US monetary, and as we explain below fiscal, policy.

SIGTARP Calls Out Tim Geithner On Various Violations Including Data Manipulation, Lack Of Transparency, "Cruel" Cynicism, And Gross Incompetence

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sigtarp-calls-out-tim-geithner-various-violations-including-data-manipulation-cruel-cynicism

Little Timmy got his report card
Lets just say it wasn't up to par
And his conduct grade was even worse

SigTarp Neil Barofsky has just released the most scathing critique of all the idiots in the administration, with a particular soft spot for Tim Geithner.

On the failure of TARP to increase lending:

Pelosi calls for investigation

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/05/democrats-call-for-invest_n_751373.html

I'd like to say this is a good thing but it's not.
This is Nancy making a political maneuver, because her ass is on the line for reelection.
If Congress investigates this it will be like every other thing they have touch, a cover up for their criminal friends.
Goldman Sachs got caught bold face lying at one of their investigations and never even got charged with perjury and still carry on the same corrupt practices to this day, because all the SEC did was to fine once again.
What the banks have done is criminal and it goes all the way to the top of that billion dollar bonus ladder.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the other California Democrats are calling for an investigation into the foreclosure fraud scandal that has forced the nation's biggest banks to halt foreclosures in 23 states.

"It just shows the irresponsibility of the banks, so eager were they to securitize those loans they didn't care almost what they were," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an interview with HuffPost on Tuesday.

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Ally Financial (formerly known as GMAC) halted foreclosures in 23 states after employees admitted in sworn depositions that they didn't verify information in thousands of foreclosure documents.

The California delegation sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan demanding an investigation into "possible violations of law or regulations by financial institutions in their handling of delinquent mortgages, mortgage modifications, and foreclosures."

In the Senate, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) sent letters to Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, GMAC, and 117 mortgage servicing companies demanding to know what they've done in light of

Time to Investigate Blankfein and Paulson (More AIG Shenanigans Edition)

Time to Investigate Blankfein and Paulson (More AIG Shenanigans Edition)

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06/30/time-to-investigate-blankfein-and-paulson-more-aig-shenanigans-edition/

Those CDO's that blew up, were filled with MERS recorded mortgage contacts.
Now just how will the current day mortgage drama with MERS affect the sorted dealings of what now be seen for what it actually was.
The covering up of a mass ponzi scheme that had become exposed.
It's time to take another look at the crime that Congress, the Treasury and the FED all aided to cover up for the mortgage banking industry.
I think it's time "WE" all take a new look at an old problem with fresh eyes.






The New York Times has unearthed a damning tidbit about the bailout of AIG:

When the government began rescuing it from collapse in the fall of 2008 with what has become a $182 billion lifeline, A.I.G. was required to forfeit its right to sue several banks — including Goldman, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — over any irregularities with most of the mortgage securities it insured in the precrisis years.

Yves here. How one reacts to this depends in no small measure as to how one views the salvage operation. For all intents and purposes, the rescue of AIG was merely a way to save the banks; the credit default swaps had been too big a source of faux capital (for US firms, via risk-dumping, and for Eurobanks, as part of a regulatory arbitrage) to let the insurer go. So any effort by the officialdom to aid the banks, most notably by paying out 100% on credit default swap exposures (which had already been written down by counterparties to less than par) was simply an effort to funnel more cash to the banks. Since we’ve had massive backdoor bailout mechanisms in addition to the overt ones, this orientation should come as no surprise.

But then we get to the funny business. Why a broad waiver? Why shouldn’t AIG (and by extension, taxpayers) not recover in the event of fraud? And we turn again to the ambiguous standing of AIG. By all rights, it ought to be owned by the government. The reason it isn’t is that we don’t do nationalization in America, and full ownership would require AIG’s debts to be consolidated with government debt. So another way to read this requirement is that the Fed and Treasury were opposed to having fraud at the banks exposed, period.

That is a very troubling stance for bank regulators to take. And experts agreed:

“Even if it turns out that it would be a hard suit to win, just the gesture of requiring A.I.G. to scrap its ability to sue is outrageous,” said David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The defense may be that the banking system was in trouble, and we couldn’t afford to destabilize it anymore, but that just strikes me as really going overboard.”

“This really suggests they had myopia and they were looking at it entirely through the perspective of the banks,” Mr. Skeel said.

Yves here. Also note that the banks mentioned by the Times account for a significant proportion of the Maiden Lane III exposures (the $62.9 billion CDO portfolio; note this does not include all CDO guarantees assumed by the Federal Reserve; seven Goldman Abacus trades stayed with AIG and were salvaged via credit extensions to AIG). An analysis by Tom Adams and Andrew Dittmer showed the significance of Merrill, Goldman, and SocGen (percentages based on par amount):

1. Merrill as both packager and counterparty 7.7%