Home

The Economic Populist

Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time

Discussion

  • Forums
    • Labor Economics
      • Labor
      • Outsourcing/Insourcing
        • Immigration
        • Professional Labor Issues
    • Macro Economics
      • Fiscal, Monetary Policy
      • Global
      • Tax Policy
      • Trade Policy
      • Wall Street
    • Politics
      • Congress
      • Executive Branch
    • Admin
  • Home
  • Reads
  • Discuss
  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • About
  • Contact
Home Forums Politics

New blog posts

  • Economic Warfare? Europe versus Wall Street
  • Let's Chat Labor Productivity
  • Why we are headed into Depression
  • First Iceland, then the World
  • Creating State Level Jobs Programs: A Jobs Insurance Supplement
  • Sunday Morning Comics - Goldman Sucks Edition
  • One Thousand Names for Fraud
  • Friday Movie Night - Eamonn Fingleton
  • "Overwhelming Force"
  • Make Markets Be Markets - A Bunch of Well Known Folk Trying to Get Some Damn Financial Reform
more

User login

  • Create new account
  • Request new password

Navigation

  • User Guide
  • News aggregator

Recent Comments

  • Many pieces on the transaction tax
    41 min 22 sec ago
  • Unions Here Also Targeting Wall Street
    1 hour 26 min ago
  • That Would Be An Immediate Low Cost Stimulus
    9 hours 44 min ago
  • No more mortgage companies feel shame or remorse
    19 hours 19 min ago
  • I'm getting jealous
    21 hours 51 min ago
  • They did something??? Wow
    1 day 35 min ago
  • Let's address the real issues
    1 day 1 hour ago
  • outsourcing
    1 day 2 hours ago
  • "pre-ordained cheap labor
    1 day 3 hours ago
  • The claim is not true and
    1 day 4 hours ago
  • Wile E. Coyote Syndrome
    1 day 5 hours ago
  • Great Article, but.
    1 day 8 hours ago
  • economic facts & propaganda
    1 day 8 hours ago
  • If the outcome of the up and
    1 day 11 hours ago
  • class warfare
    1 day 23 hours ago
  • there is an email system on EP
    2 days 54 min ago
  • Just absolutely absurd
    2 days 58 min ago
  • Extortion
    2 days 3 hours ago
  • Interesting that democracy
    2 days 4 hours ago
  • Robert if I had a magic wand I would
    2 days 7 hours ago

Poll

Populist Du Jour

  • Enron Fun with Fannie and Freddie

Vox Populi

  • Holy Cow Batman! SIGTARP Barofsky says U.S. on the hook for $23.7 Trillion in bail out!
  • Subprime meltdown over; now comes the bad news
  • The Deflationary Recession of 2009?
  • The Panic of 2008: a turning point
  • Text of Bail Out Act Before Congress - TAKE ACTION NOW!
  • U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
  • Scientist Who Laid Ground Work for Nobel Prize Drives a Bus, Can't get a Job

Active forum topics

  • Trade Deficit decreases $2.6 billion from last month - Trade January 2010
  • Geithner to use "Shame" on Mortgage Companies
more

Atlanta Fed's Macroblog

  • Consumer credit, credit availability and The Credit CARD Act
  • In the beginning, there was a lender of last resort
more

BEA

  • U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, January 2010
more

iMFdirect

  • Something New Out of Africa: A Global Player
  • Africa Is Back
more

CBO

  • Estimate of the Budgetary Effects of the Senate-Passed Health Bill
  • Presentation on “Fiscal Policy Choices” to the National Association for Business Economics
more

powells

GAO

  • GAO-10-494T, Global Food Security: Progress toward a U.S. Governmentwide Strategy Is Under Way, but Approach Has Several Vulnerabilities, March 11, 2010
  • GAO-10-352, Global Food Security: U.S. Agencies Progressing on Governmentwide Strategy, but Approach Faces Several Vulnerabilities, March 11, 2010
more

Instapopulist

  • Trade Deficit decreases $2.6 billion from last month - Trade January 2010
  • State Unemployment Maps for January 2010 - Unemployment increases in 30 States
  • Budget deficit hits another record
  • Get Ready for More Recessions
  • Joltin' up on JOLTS - Job openings increase in January 2010
  • Rich taking from the old
  • Credit Union pays people to withdraw money
more

Calculated Risk

  • Q4 2009: Mortgage Equity Withdrawal Strongly Negative
  • Flow of Funds Report: Mortgage Debt Declines by $53Billion in Q4
more

Naked Capitalism

  • Spain’s woes and Germany’s export model could mean double dip
  • Links 3/11/10
more

Paul Krugman

  • Harry Gives 'Em Hell
  • Beware of Greeks Getting Gifts?
more

dorgan

The Baseline Scenario

  • Delaying Tactics On Display
  • The Coming Greek Debt Bubble
more

Eyes on Trade

  • Watch Lori Wallach LIVE on Bloomberg TV at 2pm
  • Putting Twitter Above Labor, Environmental, and Consumer Protections?
more

Econbrowser

  • Whither the Yuan?
  • Modeling problems in credit markets
more

TradeReform.org

  • Live Webcast from the Economic Policy Institute
  • U.S. Nears a Crossroads on Trade
more

EconomPic

  • The Changing Face of American Debt
  • On the Price Stickiness of Imported Oil
more

Economist's View

  • Is This the Best Congress Can Do for the Unemployed?
  • A Government Takeover of the Economy?
more

Economy in Crisis

  • The Wealthiest Nation in the World?
  • Foreign Financing and The American Economy
more

The Big Picture

  • Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Protection (MMBM)
  • Debt levels moving lower but at a snails pace
more

Credit Slips

  • Avoid Chapter 11 at All Cost!!!
  • In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up
more

Manufacture This

  • Can America Benefit by “Going Green?”
  • A scene right out of a movie [theater]
more

Alan Tonelson

  • Trading Away Productivity
more

black swan

Beat The Press

  • Judd Gregg Argues for Higher Unemployment
  • Fannie and Freddie's Losses Are Profits at Goldman Sachs
more

Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor

  • RGE's Wednesday Note - The Rising Risk of Double-Dipping
  • Bloomberg Reports Roubini Says Cautious China to Limit Yuan Gain to 4%
more

Zero Hedge

  • New Flow Of Funds Report Demonstrates Massive Selling In Agency & MBS Holdings Away From The Fed
  • Here's Another "I Told 'ya So" for the Muni Buyers
more

The Mess That Greenspan Made

  • The protests in Greece turn ugly
  • More of the same for household flow of funds
more

Styles Checks-125 x 125- Animiated Marvel Banner

Tax Justice Network

  • Onshore: beyond the voodoo void of finance
  • Median wealth for U.S. women of colour: $5
more

Brad Delong

  • Come the Basileia...
  • Jonathan Cohn Misaprehends the Sources of Opposition to Health Care Reform
more

New Deal 2.0

  • Another Crisis on the Way? Rob Johnson on C-Span
  • Will The Senate Bill Look Like the House GOP’s Financial Reform Bill?
more

Steve Keen's Debtwatch

  • Everyone’s a critic…
  • T-Shirts for Kosciousko
more

Pension Pulse

  • A Culture of Corruption?
  • Public Pension Funds Doubling Up to Catch Up?
more

Angry Bear

  • Extending temporary tax breaks passed
  • The Chicago School--why does anybody still listen to it
more

Robert Reich

  • Bail Out Our Schools
  • Why the Continuing Bad Job Numbers Make it Harder (But Even More Important) To Pass Health Care Reform
more

Financial Armageddon

  • A Rare Breed
  • The Enforcement Tax
more

Bank Bail Outs Proved to be "inside job"

Submitted by Robert Oak on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 04:25.
  • bail out
  • corruption
  • lobbyists
  • Politics
  • TARP

What a surprise, it's not what you know, but who you know especially if you want billions in free money to cover your screw up.

A new study from University of Michigan Professors Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura found that the financial institutions who has the strongest political "ties" received the largest bail outs.

Duchin and Sosyura focused on the Capital Purchase Program, the largest TARP initiative in terms of the number of participants and the amount of expended capital. As of late September, nearly 700 financial institutions had received about $205 billion under the program.

The researchers used four variables to measure political influence: 1) seats held by bank executives on the board of directors at any of the 12 Federal Reserve banks or their branches (the Federal Reserve is involved in the initial review of CPP applications from the majority of qualified banks); 2) banks with headquarters located in the district of a U.S. House member serving on the Congressional Committee on Financial Services or its subcommittees on Financial Institutions and Capital Markets (which played a major role in the development of TARP and its amendments); 3) banks' campaign contributions to congressional candidates; and 4) banks' lobbying expenditures.

They found that a board seat at a Federal Reserve Bank was associated with a 31 percent increase in the likelihood of receiving CPP funds, while a bank's connection to a House member on key finance committees was associated with a 26 percent increase, controlling for other bank characteristics such as size and various financial indicators.

"Our findings also suggest that qualified financial institutions were more likely to receive an investment from CPP if they were bigger and had lower earnings and lower capital," said Duchin, U-M assistant professor of finance. "This is consistent with an investment strategy seeking to support systematically important institutions experiencing financial distress."

In addition, the study found the amount of CPP investments was strongly related to banks' political contributions and lobbying expenditures. A one standard-deviation increase in political contributions to congressional candidates was associated with a $14.6 million increase in allotted CPP funds, while a one standard-deviation increase in lobbying amounts was associated with an additional $10.4 million in CPP funds.

Duchin and Sosyura say the amount of CPP investments was negatively related to capital adequacy, earnings and liquidity, and positively related to bank size.

While these Professors proved it, problem is no one ever does anything to change it.

‹ Strange Bedfellows. The Christmas Gifts to pass "Health Care Reform" ›
  • addthis
  • Email this Instapopulist Forum topic
  • 2 points

CR had a story that is indicative of a bigger problem

Submitted by RebelCapitalist on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 12:21.

TARP Deadbeat List Grows to 55. Remember when:

Remember when the TARP capital was supposed to only go to "healthy" financial institutions?

The banking system is largely insolvent and we have the President telling big banks to lend to small business (which they really never did) and we got smaller banks screaming that bank examiners are too tough on them right now. We should have hit reset on the financial system a long time ago but that would've required pissing off the financial oligarchy and the Obama Administration doesn't want to do that.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

Rated 5 by one user. see individual ratings
  • reply

Reset is it!

Submitted by Frank T. on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 13:55.

Having shown themselves "too incompetent to succeed," the big banks are being showered with taxpayer $$$. What we need is a remake of banking system back when it was boring but made sense. Of course, the political elites have sold out to the big banksters, and have stacked the deck against ordinary banks.
We now need -- must have -- reform of the system. Cut up all unecessary credit cards and stop paying ururious rates. F*ck FICO scores -- when 80% of the country is not credit-worthy, it will make little difference. What if we had FIDO (Fiduciary Index for Depositary Organizations) scores for banks? With zero for outright gambling and 100 for honest, accountable, and ethical behavior. Let's say we score banks based on FIDO -- usurious = bad, fairness to consumer and depositor = good. We then begin taking our money our of the low FIDO and depositing it into good FIDO banks. Sell good FIDO banks on the principle that they sould offer higher rates on deposits than those offered by low FIDO banksters, and lend out money at reassonable though not ruinous rates to consumers and small businesses in the community. Credit-worthiness judged by prompt payment to high FIDO insitutions, screw the low FIDO banksters. Persuade politicians that we can give them FIDO scores as well -- some of them are outright dogs and need to be replaced. Let's get back to first principles -- bank locally, lend locally, and be ethical to your neighbor. Then maybe the low FIDO pups will try to become high FIDO best-of-breed.
Frank T.

Rated 5 by one user. see individual ratings
  • reply

negatively correlated

Submitted by Robert Oak on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 13:57.

this study is just for one program, CPP of the many.

But they showed that the success rate was not correlated to the obtainment of support.

I couldn't find this study and I looked so if you see the actual study from these guys, please link/post it.

Be nice to see the results in the flesh so to speak.

Not yet rated.
  • reply

Is This the Study?

Submitted by Anonymous Drive-by (not verified) on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 19:20.

I found a 9/14/09 version of a study that can be downloaded here.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1426219

I'm assuming it's the same study.

Not yet rated.
  • reply

hello anonymous drive by

Submitted by Robert Oak on Tue, 12/22/2009 - 19:30.

Thanks, I'm not sure honestly, it doesn't give an actual paper title and it would seem, if one is going to issue a press release, that the date of a paper should be around the same time.

But we can just read them (what a concept!) and see which ones determine what. It appears they are generally researching out the bail outs so it's probably an ongoing research area for them.

Hey, consider creating an account and helping out more. We need all the people we can get to look at the details and do paper dig outs! (thank you).

Not yet rated.
  • reply

Welfare for the Wealthy

Submitted by Jim_Donahue on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 14:15.

The bigger the failures the bigger the bonus I guess. I know when my company loses money there is no joy in mudville but when these people drive the companies into the ground its bailout and bonus time.

What America is this? What free market is this?

Baby Bush signed the largest check in US history to a small group of bankers with by law no oversight or accountability. Obama has stepped in and continued welfare for the wealthy. The biggest non accountable quasi/mutant government/private monopoly money printer, the Fed, has printed trillions and no one can even second guess them because they have ABSOLUTE suthority over the public's money supply.

Liars, cheats, deceivers all of them.

When you steal wearing jeans its a crime. When you steal wearing a suit its a lawsuit if even that.

Not yet rated.
  • reply

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Input format
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <b> <address> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <code> <dd> <del> <div> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <p> <pre> <span> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <tbody> <td> <tfoot> <th> <thead> <tr> <u> <ul> <tr>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Image links with 'rel="lightbox"' in the <a> tag will appear in a Lightbox when clicked on.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.

Syndicate

Syndicate content

Add to Technorati Favorites

Privacy Policy

Google Delicious Yahoo! Bloglines Newsgator MSN AOL Rojo Newsburst RSSFwd
© Economic Populist 2008-2009