A scandal bigger than Madoff.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a.OzozJQwrjQ

Buffett, Tavakoli Flag Scheme Bigger Than Madoff’s (Update1)


Interview by Yalman Onaran

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Bernard Madoff could face 20 years in jail if convicted of what prosecutors are calling the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. But his $50 billion ploy pales next to the one created by Wall Street during the past decade: the securitization machine.
In “Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street,” Janet Tavakoli explains that securitization process, and how regulators, politicians and the government ignored all kinds of warnings from people who saw it for what it was.
Tavakoli uses her 2005 lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett and their ensuing correspondence as the backbone of her analysis of the current financial crisis. Buffett, who read a draft of the book as early as last July, told Tavakoli he would feature it “prominently” at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s annual meeting in May.
“I think you’re in for a lot of fun,” Buffett wrote the author in a December e-mail.

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People like Madoff have so much perceived power that the authorities are unwilling to risk retribution to uphold the Law.

and their assets should be seized. I would start with Bush, Cheney and Paulsen.

and tell the gang-bangers they get a percentage of anything they can get them to give up.

It's just a coincidence, I'm told.

Press reports document criminality of US financial elite

These criminals could have taught the Romans a thing or two about plunder.

<snip>

Among the executives remunerated in the millions, even as many of their companies began to report losses from the subprime mortgage collapse, were:

* John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, who was awarded $83 million. His firm, now merged into Bank of America, received $10 billion in TARP money.

* Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who took home $54 million. Goldman Sachs spread around $242 million to its top five executives. It has received $10 billion in TARP funds.

* Richard D. Fairbank, the head of Capital One Financial Corp., who was paid $17 million. Capital One was given $3.56 billion in TARP money.

* Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert P. Kelly, who was paid $8.6 million. His firm received $3 billion from TARP.

were corrupt and greedy back then and have only gotten more so as the "regulators" have just looked the other way despite glaring wrongdoing.

These guys are a cozy little club and serve on each others' boards of directors to make sure that they are all obscenely compensated despite their abysmal job performance. In the meantime, the peons working in the trenches get laid off, lose their pensions or 401Ks while the fat cats go on living the high life.

It was my firsthand experience with this back in the 1980s that made me into a hardcore progressive.

just posting on some website) and elect a spokesman and get out there and get in the faces of every politician and government agency there is.

In fact what I am proposing is that we do a Rush. Get in their faces and just call 'em out.

For starters progressives need to be fighting back re the stock market. These banks are responsible for the mess - it has nothing to do with President Obama.
That should be repeated over and over.

bobthedrummer once suggested its banner:

The People's Daily Brief

Its aim would be to provide what is so sorely missing from most of what passes for news these days -- the truth.

Do you really think that John Q. Public can handle the 'real' truth?

Lies, OTOH, are going like gangbusters -- top dollar.



The truth, however, is what democracy requires.

Rachel reported a few weeks ago that John Thain would have been McPain's treasury secretary. Now THAT is a scary thought.

Now, that is really scary.

Here's the most promising line:

We should redo these mortgages but not help out speculators and the people who bought a bigger house than they could afford.

where the mortgagee is living.

People who bought properties on speculation, for rental or lease are guilty of a bad business decision. Sorry about that, but that's the way the free market works. Socializing risk is not the way to go.