Geithner’s Fed tried to keep sweet deal for banks a secret: Issa
Raw Story
By Daniel Tencer
January 7, 2010
The controversy surrounding Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s role in the 2008 Wall Street bailouts was ramped up Thursday with the revelation of emails that show the New York Federal Reserve – then run by Geithner – pressured insurance giant AIG to withhold information about payments the company made to its creditors. Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA] obtained emails between AIG employees showing that the company had planned to disclose in its filings to the SEC that it had paid 100 cents on the dollar to creditors like Goldman Sachs and other banks, but "the New York Fed crossed out the reference," Bloomberg News reports.
AIG has received $183 billion in taxpayer relief. The news that the New York Fed attempted to keep from the public how that money was spent will likely increase political opposition to Geithner’s appointment as Treasury Secretary. As Shahien Nasiripour notes at the Huffington Post, a report [PDF] last fall from the inspector general for the TARP bailout found that the New York Fed pressured AIG into paying creditors like Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia 100 cents on the dollar for failed insurance agreements known as credit default swaps, even though AIG was actively negotiating with those banks to pay them less. If AIG had had its way, it would have saved taxpayers money. But the Fed’s intervention ensured taxpayers would be on the hook for all of AIG’s bad debts.
The report therefore appeared to be definitive evidence that the Federal Reserve was far more concerned with the well-being of Wall Street than the well-being of the taxpayers bailing out Wall Street firms. The emails obtained by Rep. Issa show that AIG was aware that the New York Fed’s insistence on hiding the debt payments was questionable. Huffington Post reports:In a March 12, 2009, e-mail, Kathleen Shannon, an AIG in-house lawyer and senior vice president, told AIG executives that the firm needed to come up with a reason, per the New York Fed, for why it wasn’t going to publicly disclose details regarding payments to counterparties. "In order to make only the disclosure that the Fed wants us to make…we need to have a reasonable basis for believing and arguing to the SEC that the information we are seeking to protect is not already publicly available," Shannon wrote in an e-mail sent at 10:55 p.m. on March 12.
"It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information to the SEC," Issa said in a statement, as quoted at Bloomberg and Huffington Post. "The American taxpayers, who own approximately 80% of AIG, deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information…
People have been saying that the biggest decision of Obama’s first term would be about the troop levels in Afghanistan. I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s about his economic team, as he likes to refer to his advisers. It’s the most important one because it represents a mistake – Geithner was a bad choice from the start. He’s not in trouble because of Republican name-calling or divisive partisanship. He’s in trouble because he lacks talent, vision, and his priorities are way off the mark.
My guess is that the decision has already been made for Geithner to go, but they want to be able to name his replacement when he announces his resignation. That may take a little more time. Let’s hope it will be someone who can stand up to Larry Summers.
[…] the bankers just won’t cut it. Like many, I say that getting rid of Tim Geithner is step one [time for Geithner to go… ], maybe Larry Summers too. I hope that Geithner’s the one that has put Democrats on the wrong […]
—ORIGIN OF ISSUE—
Washington Ethicists advised Former President GW Bush that the USA owes Russia addend payments for the Alaskan Purchase. You see, when the “Tsar†sold Alaska, he was an acting “dictator,†thus the the sale is “ethically†invalid and/or unfulfilled, until the USA pays arrears to Russia in order to give the Russian people the (ethical)/fair price on the land–considering the oil underneath it & all.
—ACTION TAKEN—
GW Bush & Oligarchs followed through, and conducted a financial programmatized scam upon America, as follows:
-Many wealthy Russian Oligarchs took out generous loans from Russian banks, then bought shares in Russian companies, and then took out more loans from United States banks against the value of these shares (used as collateral). This was conducted secretively during the Bush Administration, who was & is well aware of the loans & consequences, and is committed to regarding this a “sunk cost.â€
More payments are planned to be conducted under the guise of loans to Russia & Russian Oligarchs. The Russians for their role in this theater of fraud are deliberately defaulting (as instructed to do), and the US Media speciously portrays this as “bad decision making mistakes by banks,†when in fact these are programmatized, pre-meditated, deliberate decisions to channel massive US Funds to Russia.
—DISGUISED TRANSACTIONS: MECHANISM OF THE FRAUD—
Grossly unfair to conduct this scheming, unfair to disguise transactions of such magnitude; however, it’s Not intended to be fair to you and me–even if it harms you or me.
—REVIEW OF THE PRELUDE TO FRAUD—
The 2008 global recession and credit crisis-
Many Russian Oligarchs took out generous loans from Russian banks, bought shares in Russian companies, and then took out more loans from United States banks against the value of these shares (used as collateral).
One of the first to get hit by the global downturn was Oleg Deripaska, Russia’s richest man at the time whose net worth was $28 billion in March 2008. As Oleg Deripaska borrowed money from United States banks & European banks using shares in his Russian companies as collateral. Expectations for loan recoveries are nonexistent.
The Russians who were shareholders of Russian companies, and who sold their shares to Oleg made mega-buck profit from the American Loaned Cash—Oleg served as a conduit to sap Enormous Cash Flows out of America.
—US MASS MEDIA: ITS’ CENSURESHIP, CONTROL & MANIPULATION/REVIVAL OF CENTRALIZED MEDIA CONTROL—
US media portrays these “Bad Loans†as honest mistakes because the CIA has established media programming dedicated to distract & prevent focused public attention on this matter. Such as the ‘grilling of Geithner,’ yet hold silence on failed Russian loans, and the Oligarch’s defrauding of American banks, and how Geithner is replenishing the banks for those losses 100 cents on the dollar.
Ask Obama to refuse TARP bailout to banks who made BAD RUSSIAN LOANS! Segregate Loans to Oligarchs !
The US banks we have saved with TARP, had enormous bad loans to Russia!
—2008 FIRST OF NEW ALASKAN PAYMENTS, BEGIN UNDER BUSH ADMINISTRATION—
Bush’s TARP paid US banks for their Russian Losses (why do you think Bush wanted his TARP to be exceptionally unregulated).
That’s the motivation behind the transactions causing enormous money flow out of USA into Russia! Bush Ok’d it, and oversaw it, and they’ve not finished. Bush gave a huge ballonn payent, which ‘tanked’ the economy as he left office. The Obama Admin payments consist of those going thru AIG, and those he signed off for CIT, just before CIT filed bankruptcy protection.
how much will Obama send via Geithner in totality–Geithner is still there.!!
If the Fed is so intent on flushing cash to Russia for the Alaskan Purchase, then it should be based on system of Royalties, and go into effect upon tapping into the Alaskan Reserves. Geithner should be arrested and penalized.
Obama will lose the Presidency before his four years is up (I’m now convinced) because he does not desire the Presidency. Obama ignores the unemployed, and pushed unpopular concepts.
The mistreatment of Bear Sterns & the lavish treatment of AIG Deutsche Bank. Is Geithner a European mole, who has worked his way into America’s political scene, and now destroying America economically? It would seem so. Bear Stearns is mostly Domestic and the Fed DESTROYED it. OTO, the European Banks are getting extraordinary lavish treatment. C’mon America. All the money back!! Fire Bernanke, and bring the money back.
Geithner is a LIAR. He failed to bring Negotiators with him, he failed to consult with the enormous reservoir of intellectual talent available to him–at his fingertips. He ran off, concealed the ‘negotiations,’ which most likely were not negotiations at all. They were premeditated conspiracy to flush cash to European Banks 100 cents on the dollar, in-order to replenish them for ‘laons’ made to Oligarchs. This Mafia style crime behavior by Geithner. And Obama appointed him!