We’ll be all over those docs too…so stay tuned as America sinks~jude
Courtney Comstock
Tomorrow, the Fed will begrudgingly release documents that may reveal which banks would have failed without a bailout.
Ever since the Fed bailout in 2008, the public has only known that nearly every major US bank was bailed out. But of course that’s because the Fed shielded us from the knowledge of which banks actually needed a bailout.
A little background: In 2008, the Fed is said to have loaned to banks that didn’t need bailouts in order to remove the stigma of being insolvent from the banks that needed one, which could have rendered the bailouts worthless.
The Feds didn’t want it to be one group of “insolvent, very risky” banks versus one group of “solvent, solid” banks.
The documents released tomorrow may distinguish one group from the other.
So it’s no surprise that after Bloomberg’s Mark Pittman requested the forms back in 2008 (before he died in 2009) as part of the freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve Board appealed to the court to avoid releasing the requested information.
These are the “hot” items Bloomberg requested, the info the Fed really doesn’t want to release:
231 “term sheets” documenting Fed loans to financial firms during 2008. The records, which include the banks’ names, the amounts borrowed and the collateral posted in return.
Of course the banks don’t want these details revealed. The info could seriously damage the banks that would have failed without a bailout.
The Fed tried to use the potential havoc the data could wreak in a bid to keep the data under wraps six months ago:
“[In their appeal, the Fed said that] disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury.”
But their appeal was denied.
A consortium of banks (including JP Morgan, BofA and Citi) called the Clearing House Association then filed another appeal, however, which the Fed did not join. But because the decision was appealed, the lower court’s ruling was put “on hold” until the high court returns a verdict – hence the Fed did not have to release the documents right away.
So does that mean we will definitely find out which banks needed bailing out and which didn’t? No. There’s no way of knowing.
Plus, while Dodd-Frank financial reform law mandates the Fed release details on emergency programs during the crisis, it apparently it not required to release information on discount window, which is the window that Bloomberg is sued over.
So after tomorrow, we could still be as clueless as we are now.
OR, as an Oppenheimer bank analyst put it in March:
[The release could have] “catastrophic” results, including demands for the instant disclosure of banks seeking help from the Fed, resulting in a “death sentence” for such financial institutions.
The release is set for 12 pm, and Senator Bernie Sanders is holding a conference call at 4 pm to discuss the findings with the media.
We’ll be all over the documents starting at noon tomorrow, so stay posted.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Over the last six years, residents of Dubai have seen it grow out of a 141-foot hole in the ground, to stretch 2,717 feet (828 meters) into the Gulf sky.
But now the shimmering spire that is the Burj Khalifa can finally enter the record book as the world’s tallest building, after a spectacular opening ceremony on Monday night.
The unveiling of the $1.5 billion project came after two months of bad press for Dubai, which has seen the emirate accused of being unable to repay its debt.
“Crises come and go, and cities move on,” Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of EmaarProperties, the state-owned developer of the building, told reporters Monday.
“You have to move on. Because if you stop taking decisions, you stop growing.”
The building, which was originally called the Burj Dubai, was renamed on Monday night in honor of the Abu Dhabi ruler, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the country’s president.
However, the speculation over the reasons behind the renaming may threaten to overshadow the opening of the building itself.
A month before, Al Nahyan had authorized a $10 billion bailout, after Dubai’s largest state-owned conglomerate appeared unable to repay its debt on time.
Conditions of the bailout package were not immediately revealed, but Jim Krane, author of City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism, believes the renaming must have been one of them.
“Many people believe that man is evolving; society is evolving; and that we now have control over the arbitrary evil of our environment; or at least we will have it after George Bush and his Neocons have about 25 years to fight the endless War against Terror” – Laura Knight-Jadczyk, from the Editor’s Preface to “Political Ponerology – A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes” by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
For all of my life, one of my greatest interests has been to understand the nature of human evil. And I have always believed that it is one of the most important subjects that mankind needs to understand. So thank you to fellow DUer Larry Ogg for referring me to Lobaczewski’s book on Political Ponerology (and for your ideas on how to present this information).
Laura Knight-Jadczyk, in her Editor’s Preface to “Political Ponerology”, puts today’s world in perspective:
At the social level, hatred, envy, greed and strife multiply exponentially. Crime increases faster than the population. Combined with wars, insurrections and political purges, multiplied millions across the globe are without adequate food or shelter due to political actions… The totality of human suffering is a dreadful thing…
The woeful status of today’s world, as depicted in that brief but cogent summary, is due to human evil more than it is due to any other factor. Furthermore, humanity’s historical record in dealing with human evil has been abysmal.
A cable from WikiLeaks release links China and a coordinated hacking attack that targeted Google
by Michael Kan
China has blocked Internet access to WikiLeaks’ release of more than 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables, with its Foreign Ministry saying that it does not wish to see any disturbance in China-U.S. relations.
“China takes note of the government reports. We hope the U.S. side will handle the relevant issues,” Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said at a Beijing news conference on Tuesday. “As for the content of the documents, we will not comment on that.”
Access to the WikiLeak’s Cablegate page, as well as certain Chinese language news articles covering the topic, have been blocked in the country since Monday. Other articles from the Chinese press that are accessible on the web appear to only concern the U.S. response.
‘The best way to fight Communism is by a One World socialist state governed by experts like themselves. The result has been policies which favor. gradual surrender of United States sovereignty to the United Nations.’- Granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, writing about the CFR point of view in the Indianapolis News, Dec. 23, 1961
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), controls Corporate Media, they want to control what you see and hear… and thus, what you think.
The members of the CFR dominate almost every aspect of American life, yet most Americans have never even heard of the Council on Foreign Relations. One reason for this is probably because there are over 170 journalists, correspondents, and communications executives who are members of the CFR, and who do not write about the organization. Also, it is an express condition of membership that no one is to disclose what goes on at CFR meetings.
Congressmen John R. Rarick had warned:
“The CFR, dedicated to one-world government, financed by a number of the largest tax-exempt foundations, and wielding such power and influence over our lives in the areas of finance, business, labor, military, education, and mass communication-media, should be familiar to every American concerned with good government, and with preserving and defending the U.S. Constitution and our free-enterprise system. Yet, the nation’s right-to-know machinery, the news media, usually so aggressive in exposures to inform our people, remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the CFR, its members and their activities.
“The CFR is the establishment. Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also finances and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitution Republic into a servile member of a one-world dictatorship.”
The CFR now has its main headquarters at the corner of park Avenue and 68th Street in New York City, in a building given to the organization by the Rockefeller family in 1929. Its main goal is still to create a one-world government by destroying the freedom and independence of all nations, especially the United States. And David Rockefeller continues to be its Chairman of the Board.
Remember our scenario #2 of the “TippingPoint“?…makes one go hmmmm ~jude
Posted by: Leo Kolivakis
Post date: 11/29/2010 – 21:21
Canadian university pension plans have fallen into a collective $2.6-billion hole, and may have no choice but to cut services to begin climbing back out of it. And US university pension pans aren’t faring better…
Everything you desired to know about the “Irish Package” and then some, dissected with clinical post-mortem precision by Goldman’s Francesco U. Garzarelli. We can only hope the Spanish, Italian and French packages are deemed more satisfactory by the market.
On the Irish Package and EMU Sovereign Debt
In an emergency meeting this afternoon, EU Finance Ministers and the IMF have agreed to extend financial support to Ireland. According to EU Commissioner Rehn, no ‘haircuts’ will be applied to holders of senior bonds issued by the Irish banks. However, we would caution that additional liability management transactions are still likely at the major Irish banks. The agreement will be formalized in coming weeks in a Memorandum of Understanding.
We think the Irish deal will lead to a moderate compression in Irish government bond spreads. The encouraging elements are the relatively speedy negotiations under the emergency framework agreed this Summer, the emphasis given to the recapitalization of domestic banks, and the long maturity of the loans. We provide details below.
Since the dramatic release of a US military film of a US airborne shooting of unarmed journalists in Iraq, Wiki-Leaks has gained global notoreity and credibility as a daring website that releases sensitive material to the public from whistleblowers within various governments. Their latest “coup” involved alleged leak of thousands of pages of supposedly sensitive documents regarding US informers within the Taliban in Afghanistan and their ties to senior people linked to Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence. The evidence suggests however that far from an honest leak, it is a calculated disinformation to the gain of the US and perhaps Israeli and Indian intelligence and a coverup of the US and Western role in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan.
Since the posting of the Afghan documents some days ago the Obama White House has given the leaks credibility by claiming further leaks pose a threat to US national security. Yet details of the papers reveals little that is sensitive. The one figure most prominently mentioned, General (Retired) Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani military intelligence agency, ISI, is the man who during the 1980’s coordinated the CIA-financed Mujahideen guerilla war in Afghanistan against the Soviet regime there. In the latest Wikileaks documents, Gul is accused of regularly meeting Al Qaeda and Taliban leading people and orchestrating suicide attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The leaked documents also claim that Osama bin Laden, who was reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto on BBC, was still alive, conveniently keeping the myth alive for the Obama Administration War on Terror at a point when most Americans had forgotten the original reason the Bush Administration allegedly invaded Afghanistan to pursue the Saudi Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.
Demonizing Pakistan?
The naming of Gul today as a key liaison to the Afghan “Taliban” forms part of a larger pattern of US and British recent efforts to demonize the current Pakistan regime as a key part of the problems in Afghanistan. Such a demonization greatly boosts the position of recent US military ally, India. Furthermore, Pakistan is the only muslim country possessing atomic weapons. The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency reportedly would very much like to change that. A phoney campaign against the politically outspoken Gul via Wikileaks could be part of that geopolitical effort.
A friend of mine in Warsaw told me about a Polish journalist who visited Israel for the first time. On his return he reported with great excitement: “You know what I’ve discovered? In Israel, too, there are Jews!”
For this Pole, Jews are people who wear a long black kaftan and a big black hat. In almost every souvenir shop in Poland, little figures like this are exhibited along with other classics like the nobleman, the artisan and the peasant.
Courtney Comstock
