March 2009

What a surprise, toxic drywall from China

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It never ends and we do not have inspections at ports and lord knows what is in our products anymore since they are made overseas.

The latest? toxc drywall causes houses to smell, make people sick and even destroy their home appliances.

shipping records indicate tens of thousands of residences in the United States, with a good chunk of them in Florida, may have drywall from the manufacturers

"tens of thousands" can be 10,000 to 1,000,000 properties.

The drywall was imported in 2005, 2006. God knows what else or shoddy goods were going on during the height of the housing bubble.

the drywall has caused them to suffer health problems such as headaches and sore throats and face huge repair expenses.

The Real Screw Job - AIG Used as Funnel of U.S. Taxpayer Money

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large screw small screw
See these two screws on the left? Think of the little screw as AIG bonuses. That big nasty long screw is AIG funneling $183 billion dollars of your money to foreign banks and to banks that already have wads of cash on hand. Those two screw jobs are not even to scale because the large screw would go past the page. Look those two screws over. Now which one do you believe Populist outrage should be focused on?

So we are all outraged over AIG bonuses. Now lets amplify that outrage to the scale of the ripoff. The bonuses are only 0.001 of the real ripoff that just happened. Your tax dollars were funneled through AIG to foreign banks and to U.S. banks for worthless assets. Your own blind rage is a smoke screen, being used by media elites so you do not see the real screw job going on.

In an Instapopulist earlier we showed the AIG payout disclosure. Now I want to amplify those payouts. In the attached file AIG lists payouts to counter parties.

What happened? Basically a bunch of companies placed bets, called credit default swaps, that home mortgages weren't so great and would probably go bust. AIG (Financial Products), as the great global gambling hall, allowed these bets to be placed. Then AIG got a huge mega wad of cash from the government so they could pay out on these casino hall winnings instead of going bankrupt. Banks who won big are foreign banks and of course Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary Paulson's former company.

Think it's about unfreezing credit markets for you and me? Think it's about contracts? Don't you remember something about other nations taking care of their own banking system? Do you believe the United States should prop up the entire globe or payout U.S. taxpayer money to other nations?

Contracts are broken all of the time and considering this is U.S. taxpayer money footing the bill to pay for the below banks gambling bets, yeah, a nation can break such outrageous contracts. This is especially true considering these very institutions are getting billions of your money from the TARP and Federal Reserve. Did you know Goldman Sachs bought an energy speculation firm while receiving TARP funds?

The Wall Street Journal put together an image to show you how this Ponzi scheme works:

 

 

Wamu sues FDIC for over $13 billion

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Remember Wamu? Washington Mutual bank which ran itself into the ground over liar loans and various unsound banking practices?

They are now suing the FDIC:

Washington Mutual Inc, the failed U.S. savings and loan, has sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp for well over $13 billion in connection with the loss of its banking operations, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the thrift's former parent accused the FDIC of having on January 23 made a "cryptic disallowance" of its claims, prompting the lawsuit.

It also accused the FDIC of agreeing to an unreasonably low price in arranging the a $1.9 billion sale of the banking business to JPMorgan on September 25, when regulators seized Washington Mutual and appointed the FDIC as receiver.

More Big Bucks for Private Investors - Geithner "Plan" Leaked - TARP II

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Here we go, once again trying to get something for worthless assets at the U.S. taxpayers expense. This time since Obama and Geithner know there is no way Congress is going to give them more money....so, they are going to raid the FDIC.

The plan, which will not be released until next week is now leaked all over the press.

In order to get $1 trillion of the estimated $2 trillion of "toxic assets" off of the banks books, now the plan is to offer private investors huge subsidies and loans and then auction off these various assets to these same investors. These "toxic assets" are assuredly really toxic for the banks get to choose which ones they will sell.

The New York Times:

The plan is likely to offer generous subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to coax investors to form partnerships with the government to buy toxic assets from banks.

Friday Movie Night - Argentina's Economic Collapse

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It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

This is a nice illustrated video to explain, in layman's terms, how the credit crisis happened. If you are having problems getting your head wrapped around what is going on, you might watch this.

Bank Failure Friday strikes credit unions

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This time it was three banks and two credit unions. I guess they were making up for a couple quite weeks. I find it disturbing that the credit union system is getting unstable with almost no reporting.

The pace of the ongoing credit crisis quickened significantly Friday when regulators seized three banks and placed two large corporate credit unions into conservatorship, citing a need to "stabilize the corporate credit union system."

Hunt 'em Down - 19 States Launch Fraud Probe into AIG Financial Products Unit - Focus on Bonuses

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Get out the dogs, sic' those bastards! Hang 'em high! The public lynching continues on AIG bonuses with this latest action: 19 States Launch Fraud Probe:

To ensure the investing public, as was promised, that money received by the company is being utilized to improve the financial welfare of the company, not to pad the pockets of the same individuals who led to the financial crisis in the first place.

The actual letter is here.

While I am thrilled there is increasing focus on derivatives, structured finance, I'm not so sure focusing in on individuals will get to the bottom of this Ponzi scheme. We have structured financial products all over, everyone was in on this game, not just AIG.

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