Having found virtually no one in the mainstream media or Congress with the courage to demand answers to the questions posed in this Bloomberg article of the former USA's new King Henry, the poor naive commoners are attempting to use the "democratic process" to halt the ongoing Wall Street bailout boondoggle:***
Inquiring minds are asking A $1.8 Trillion Bailout: Where the Money's Going?
—Up to $700 billion to buy assets from struggling institutions. The plan is aimed at sopping up residential and commercial mortgages from financial institutions but gives Treasury broad latitude.
—Up to $50 billion from the Great Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee principal in money market mutual funds to provide the same confidence that consumers have in federally insured bank deposits.
—The Fed committed to make unspecified discount window loans to financial institutions to finance the purchase of assets from money market funds to aid redemptions.
—At least $10 billion in Treasury direct purchases of mortgage-backed securities in September. In doubling the program on Friday, the Treasury said it may purchase even more in the months ahead.
—Up to $144 billion in additional MBS purchases by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.The Treasury announced they would increase purchases up to the newly expanded investment portfolio limits of $850 billion each. On July 30, the Fannie portfolio stood at $758.1 billion with Freddie's at $798.2 billion.
—$85 billion loan for AIG, which would give the Federal government a 79.9 percent stake and avoid a bankruptcy filing for the embattled insurer. AIG management will be dismissed.
—At least $87 billion in repayments to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) for providing financing to underpin trades with units of bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers (LEH).
—$200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury will inject up to $100 billion into each institution by purchasing preferred stock to shore up their capital as needed. The deal puts the two housing finance firms under government control.
—$300 billion for the Federal Housing Administration to refinance failing mortgage into new, reduced-principal loans with a federal guarantee, passed as part of a broad housing rescue bill.
—$4 billion in grants to local communities to help them buy and repair homes abandoned due to mortgage foreclosures.
—$29 billion in financing for JPMorgan Chase's government-brokered buyout of Bear Stearns in March. The Fed agreed to take $30 billion in questionable Bear assets as collateral, making JPMorgan liable for the first $1 billion in losses, while agreeing to shoulder any further losses.
—At least $200 billion of currently outstanding loans to banks issued through the Fed's Term Auction Facility, which was recently expanded to allow for longer loans of 84 days alongside the previous 28-day credits.
A quick check of the totals shows that is $1.809 trillion dollars that Congress is hell bent on wasting...
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Silly peasants. Don't they know there's been a coup d'etat?
***
Financial coup d’etat in the U.S. – Part 1 – Hello feudalism
There is no other way to describe it. The biggest financial institutions in the U.S, in league with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress, are staging a kind of coup d’etat against the American people.
If allowed to proceed, they will put forward legislation later in the week that will assign dictator-like powers to the U.S. Secretary of Treasury and certain big banks, and, using these powers, dump hundreds of billions of more bad debt on ordinary Americans. The consequences are dire, not just for the economy, but also for the civil rights of Americans.
Working behind closed doors over the weekend, leaders of the political and financial elite have been putting the final touches on a plan whereby the big banks and financiers will shift up to $700 billion of bad debt and toxic mortgages (which they created) onto the backs of the American people via the federal government, as well as put themselves in an ideal positon to strike a blow at other competitors, including non-monopoly financial institutions that are smaller or more community and regionally based.
All of this is in addition to the hundreds of billions that have already been pledged to bail out various big banks and other Wall Street financial institutions, as well as pump liquidity into the markets. The scale of this bailout is almost beyond description.
For example, various politicians and bankers are saying that the total amount of the bailout will be between $1 to $1.5 trillion, which is bad enough, being more than the GDP of a country like Canada. The government has already pledged $200 billion alone to prop up the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What the politicians who support this bailout often fail to mention is that the American taxpayer must also now take on the debt of these giant mortgage companies, a sum that adds up to around $5 trillion. If housing prices do not recover (they are already down more than 15% on average), taxpayers could be liable for a substantial portion of that amount.
Likewise with the government bailout of AIG Insurance last week which cost $85 billion and results in the government now owning 80% of the company. One of the reasons why other banks would not touch AIG with a ten foot pole was that, over the last few years, AIG has been heavily involved in what are called “credit default swaps,” a kind of insurance policy for other companies in case they go bankrupt. If the American economy tanks, which many believe it is in the process of doing, no one can really say for sure how much the U.S. government (and the American taxpayer) would get back from the sale of AIG assets, if anything.
It is important to remember that these hundreds of billions of government bailout funds are being directed to aid an extremely tiny, but unimaginably wealthy, section of the population that is notorious for its greed, corruption, high living and recklessness, and that is responsible for hatching up the schemes to spread the bad mortgages, toxic securities, and other questionable financial instruments through, not only the American, but also the world financial system, thus triggering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Indeed, even the notoriously corrupt emperors Caligula and Nero of Ancient Rome would be shocked by the sheer avarice, arrogance, and egotism of this privileged 21st Century elite.
Examples of their out-of-control greed abound. One individual, Dick Fuld, CEO of the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers, walked off with $490 million for his term of office. Goldman Sachs sold toxic securities to unsuspecting pension funds, companies and individuals around the world, while at the same time selling “short” these securities, i.e., betting that their value would decrease. It is estimated that Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars on this scheme alone, which, if not constituting fraud, certainly borders on it. And there are numerous other examples of both questionable and criminal behavior by top investment banks and brokers.
Which brings us to the legislative proposal that the White House has sent to Congress. Who is spearheading this proposal? None other than Henry Paulson, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who, surprise, surprise, was a former official with the same Goldman Sachs. The fox looking after the henhouse, so to speak.
The actual text of the Bush government’s legislative proposal sounds like the proclamation of a banana republic “coup d’etat” and is chilling in its implications. For example, the proposal gives Henry Paulson, as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, dictatorial powers to designate any financial institutions he chooses as “financial agents of the Government.”
You can bet that the financial institutions that will be handed these extraordinary government powers will not be your local credit union, community-based bank or smaller investment house. Rather it will be the big banks associated with the Federal Reserve and other chosen financial monopolies (both domestic and foreign) that caused the crisis in the first place and are now using it to mount a sort of “coup” against other competitors (especially the smaller, non-monopoly ones), and the American people as a whole.
In other words, the same individuals who wrecked the U.S. financial system are the very ones given the lucrative contract to “rebuild it.” Many analysts are predicting that hundreds of smaller banks and financial companies across the U.S. will go bankrupt in the coming period. Guess who will be swooping in to take over their business.
Further language in the Bush government proposal gets even spookier. Section 8 reads: “Decisions by the [U.S. Treasury] Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
In essence, this is putting above the law any decisions or actions carried out under this Act by the U.S. Secretary or by any financial institutions it has chosen to be “agents of the government.” This is feudal rule, pure and simple, whereby the rulers put themselves over and above the law, and the civil right of citizens to challenge arbitrary decisions does not exist.
Using this anti-democratic legislation, the U.S. government, working on behalf of the big banks, can shift hundreds of billions of dollars of the big banks’ toxic debt onto the American people, as well as knock off other players in the financial sector that are not part of the “chosen few”. And nobody can challenge these decisions. No one can even mount a lawsuit against unfair or discriminatory practices.
How will this cabal of Wall Street financiers that is pulling the strings of the U.S. government wipe out their competition? One way - Designated as “financial agents” of the government, these chosen banks will have huge influence over which financial institutions get to unload their bad debt and which will not. If you are a small bank or credit union somewhere in rural America that has some bad mortgages on your balance sheets and you are not one of the Wall Street chosen few – watch out...
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Satirical confirmation of the nefarious origins of King Henry's deal can be found here.
Someone remind me - did serfs have the right to keep and bear arms?
And if not, why not?
Oh, but something like a creditor-ordered confiscation of all civilian-held arms and ammunition as a condition of receiving "assistance" on both the national and personal levels could never happen here.
This is America.
Or it was, until recently.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
We'll let Coldplay take us out of this post, with what I propose as the Theme Song for the 2008 Collapse - Viva La Vida:
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemies eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can not explain
Once you know there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world
(Ohhh)
It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in.
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People could not believe what I'd become
Revolutionaries Wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can not explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
And that was when I ruled the world
(Ohhhhh Ohhh Ohhh)
Hear Jerusalem bells are ringings
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can not explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh
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