Thanks for the thread, Skwmom.

was held to account in a criminal sense for all of this. Not one upper-level banker. It's despicable. These people did as much if not more harm to our country than some terrorists with bombs strapped to their chests, but where's the War on Dirty Banking? Where's the War on White Collar Larceny of Trillions?

Oh yeah... I forgot... corporations are people now and they can buy politicians. My bad.

He said just what you did.

She's part of the problem.

The quick version of it is that the funding facilities by the Fed were in essence lines of credit to provide greater liquidity for bank assets to ensure that the system didn't totally freeze up. It's not like this money was literally paid out to anyone in check form.

can you help?

The short term loans were kept offered and so the "$14 trillion" "adds up". It's a disingenuous accounting.

You're saying this is a good thing? To rescue the criminal entities who pulled off these epic scams on millions of people, and destroyed the economy for billions of people? Not only to save the banksters and hedge-fund pirates but to help them get richer, bigger, more powerful? So that they can buy elections on even more enormous scales? (We must save Godzilla, he's too big too fail!)

And to do this on the basis of the Fed getting to set its own policy independently and in secret? Inflating the asset side (nice market, hooray!) so as to float the finance sector's fantasy football games and do zilch for real economy? Let the wealth continue being sucked upwards? Pretend to reach no-fault "settlements" that are basically the government getting a small cut of the action?

The law has provisions for liquidating insolvent corporations and for prosecuting fraud, which on the scale that was practiced is a crime that destroyed millions of people's lives. Serial killers and mass shooters don't get to do that. Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein and Sir Stephen Green get to do that. 2007-09 demanded that the stables be cleaned out of the mountains of horseshit and toxic waste. Instead, one message was delivered: Crime pays. Keep at it, banksters!

ranging from $40 billion to $100 billion per MONTH to take mortgage backed securities off bank balance sheets.

Don't worry, the government still owns those securities though. I'm sure they'll get par value of years 10 - 30 on mortgages of homes that were forclosed upon and have sat empty for 5+ years already.

More likely, the properties will be sold off one day to banks that donate to the right people. The banks will turn a tidy profit flipping them to developers.

Hey, Everybody (including you) !

Here's just a tiny sample of what Elizabeth Warren has to say about what this cost, (far more comprehensive information in the PDF file)...

<snip>

But it turns out that that $700 billion is just a small part of a much larger pool of money that has gone into propping up our nation’s financial system. And most of that taxpayer money hasn’t had much public scrutiny at all.

According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy. The Bloomberg reporters have been following that money. Alison Stewart spoke with one, Bob Ivry, to talk about the true cost to the taxpayer of the Wall Street bailout.
<Snip>

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/

I suspect you're right with regard to the bailout costing trillions; quantitative easing appears to be nothing more than printing money.

But what would Bernie have done differently? I suspect he would have cut up the large banks, but I don't know if that would have been the best solution for the mortgage crisis, or instability in the markets caused by derivatives or hedge funds. Furthermore, it is important to note that no other developed countries have taken this course of breaking up the big banks since the crisis. Of the world's 25 largest banks, only 5 are in the US, and three are actually in little Canada. With oil prices in the crapper for the foreseeable future, one might actually argue that Canadian Banks are too big to fail. And they've never had any Glass-Steagall style law there, or anywhere in Europe, as far as I know.

The banking system is such a huge part of the economy of both London and Great Britain generally (just as it is in NYC); I can't imagine any Brit politician seriously considering a bank breakup without thinking it over very carefully.

i think that's the argument being made against the american banks.

It's the major employer in the NYC area. If the metro NY area goes into recession, the rest of the Northeast is not far behind.

dead manufacturing town here, i'm not seeing any benefit from wall street.

also, in maine especially, we're all members of the local credit union.

it is the forcing the commoner into austerity at the same time

Things would have been a good deal more austere had the banks failed, say a la 1930's. Still, we didn't go far enough to investigate and punish wrongdoers; that's for sure. And I read on another thread tonight that GWB's tax cut for the wealthy has now cost us over $6 Trillion. That might be an exaggeration, though. Nonetheless, half of that occurred during Obama's tenure, even though Obama tried everything in his power (on many occasions) to reverse the tax cuts. So yes, average citizens have really taken the brunt of this recession. You can thank the Republicans for that. We have to find a way to take back the House, Senate and Supreme Court.

Did I read that correctly?

He made a grand bargain to extend the tax cuts in exchange for a menu of mostly social programs.

Cutting a deal is compromising toward, not reversing.

Really?

and the inevitable Second Meltdown. Priorities.

if your goal is to give as distorted a number as possible.

The short term loans kept getting repeatedly issued because they were short term. The government never had $14 trillion in outstanding loans. The time-weighted numbers are much, much less impressive.

they were fully collateralized with US Treasury securities

how much of this was paid back

they keep telling me they paid it all back

are we still concerned re: the lasting damage to our economy. employment still isn't back to pre-recession levels, and news on the block is that employers were using the recession as an excuse to reduce their employee pool.
98% recovered that's quite respectable tho. the analysis shows that the financial institutions are by and large a drain on our economy, but i wonder sometimes if OWS hyperbole is just that.

the money lent to the car companies (GM) have not been fully repaid

livelihoods, homes, and retirement funds been "fully repaid"?

stock market has more than recovered and as of last year was at a record high. Unemployment is at a cycle low.

skewing some statistic you hunted for, and that means to you that those millions of Americans of who lost their jobs and were forced to take lower paying positions and whose personal investments and equity declined in the same period were made whole? Is that the bull$hit you're trying to propagate here?

If we look at the aggregate, American taxpayers have more than recovered their net wealth since 2008.

Stock market hit a record high last year as well.

And go back to hitting your bottle.

Americans are better off than in 2008.

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Can you possibly be serious? You must have seen the data on the wealth transfer to the 1%? You must know that that the unemployment figures are artificially low? That the working class has never recovered? That people out here are working harder - if they are lucky enough to have a job - while falling further behind?

Why do you think there's so much anger out here in the real world?

throw them in jail. You won't hear it on Meet the Press, or the O'reilly factor though.

Iceland has jailed 26 bankers, why won't we?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iceland-has-jailed-26-bankers-why-wont-we-a6735411.html

Iceland Jailed Bankers and Rejected Austerity—and It’s Been a Success

Instead of imposing devastating austerity measures and bailing out its banks, Iceland let its banks go bust and focused on social welfare policies. It has now repaid 85 percent of U.K. claims, and the Icelandic finance minister announced recently that all will be settled by the end of the year.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/12/iceland-jailed-bankers-and-rejected-austerity-and-its-been-success

Iceland Just Jailed Dozens of Corrupt Bankers for 74 Years, the Opposite of What America Does. The prosecution of the Icelandic bankers represents an accountability that does not exist in America.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/iceland-just-jailed-dozens-corrupt-bankers-74-years-opposite-what-america-does

The Rule of Law is for the commoners.

Federal Reserve Member banks borrow from the FRB Discount Window short term loans ranging from a few hours to over night to meet asset reserve ratios requirements. 96% of the $16.8 trillion dollars was daily churn.

And no one even noticed!

That $16.8 Trillion was a revolving line of credit that never involved actually giving any money to anyone.

The actual outlays were about $440 Billion, and the receipts were $450 Billion or so. It made money for the government; I don't know why you're so resistant to the simple facts here.

and cohorts (after they extorted the federal government) have been paid back to the taxpayer, to date?

No actual transfers of money happened in that.

From whose a$$ did you pull that out of -- your own, or someone else's? You have some information that no one in Treasury has? Steven Rattner was lying or had no idea what he was talking about when he was forced to a negotiate a $7.3 billion payout to Singer's Delphi?

Singer actually deserved the money?

Your ignorance on this matter can be forgiven (or at least made understandable) if so.

You don't believe in the rule of law? You don't believe creditors are entitled to their day in court?

There was no debt issue involved in the Delphi shakedown.

extorting taxpayer money via TARP in what way?

Singer owned the fulcrum security and threatened to let the company go under if he didn't get paid

And the article never said that he "threatened to let the company go under if he didn't get paid". It says quite clearly that Singer, as the new owner of Delphi, threatened to withhold making and supplying car parts to General Motors if the government didn't pay him what he wanted. He threatened to obliterate the entire Detroit auto industry if the government didn't pay him $7.3 taxpayer dollars.

You might want to slink back over to 4chan.

from your article once again

With Delphi under Singer's control, he threatened to shut it down unless the taxpayer bailed it out -- holding General Motors and Chrysler hostage, because if Delphi shut down, the companies would lack steering columns and other essential parts

He and his partners combined wealth did not require any bail out. Is that difficult for you to understand?

So far, you've wasted a good amount of time here ludicrously defending Paul Singer on Democratic Underground, and you've been claiming to be a Democrat here. Want to know the end of the story? I'll make it a thread of its own, if you want -- your posts defending Paul Singer as the highlight.

the article you cited is extremely misleading. Singer never made 7b off Delphi.

I don't recall him having such a great year.

a month across the economy. People have short memories or they are blatantly dishonest. Bankruptcies were throughout the economy and millions lost their homes.

the swap lines with foreign central banks have been made permanent with no limits on amounts.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20131031a.htm

the current world financial system is short of dollars, so those swaps are all going to be foreign central banks swapping for dollars, with the USA bearing all the exchange rate risk.

Seven years of zero interest rates have cost trillions in lost interest income for holders of bank accounts, money market funds, bond funds etc.

Seven years of zero interest rates also caused a worldwide bubble in US dollar borrowing, hence the worldwide shortage of dollars (to pay back those loans)... hence the swap lines with central banks...

the total tab was $13 trillion. That is THIRTEEN TRILLION with a T. Every penny went to banks, mostly the banks that caused the crash in the first place.

And Prins knows the ins and outs of Wall Street like no other investigative reporter.