3
0

Obama got away with doing absolutely nothing about all the banking fraud


 invite response                
2019 Dec 28, 11:37am   2,444 views  49 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/evidence-of-absence/

How it was that Barack Obama came on-duty in January of 2009 and got away with doing absolutely nothing about all that for eight years remains one of the abiding mysteries of life on earth. Perhaps getting the first black president into the White House was such an intoxicating triumph of righteousness that nothing else seemed to matter anymore. Perhaps Mr. Obama was just a cat’s paw for banksterdom. (Sure kinda seems like it, when your first two hires are Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.) ...

But now we are a year into Attorney General Bill Barr coming on the scene — the crime scene of RussiaGate and all its deceitful spin-offs. The Mueller investigation revealed itself as not just a thumping failure, but part of a broader exercise in bad faith and sedition to first prevent Mr. Trump from winning the 2016 election and then to harass, obstruct, disable, and eject him from office. And six months after Mr. Mueller’s face-plant, out comes the Horowitz Report tracing in spectacular detail further and deeper criminal irregularities in the US Justice agencies. What’s more, tremendous amounts of evidence for all this already sits on-the-record in public documents. The timelines are well understood.

And so, an anxious nausea creeps over the land that Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham are dawdling toward a goal of deflecting justice from the sick institutions behind the three-year coup — that our polity is so saturated in corruption nothing will be allowed to clean it up. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that hopelessness, and I will say why. But I must also say that if Barr & Durham fail to deliver a bale of indictments, they will be putting a bullet in the head of this republic. There will be no hope of restoring trust in the system and the hopelessness will inspire serious civil violence.

Comments 1 - 40 of 49       Last »     Search these comments

1   Tenpoundbass   2019 Dec 28, 11:40am  

Sure something was done. CFPB Elizabeth Warren, doesn't seem too keen to run on the merits of her crown jewel legislation though.
2   Tenpoundbass   2019 Dec 28, 1:52pm  

Tenpoundbass says
Sure something was done. CFPB Elizabeth Warren, doesn't seem too keen to run on the merits of her crown jewel legislation though.


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/busted-elizabeth-warrens-cfpb-used-secret-slush-fund-funnel-billions-left-wing-causes/

BUSTED: Elizabeth Warren’s CFPB Used Secret “Slush Fund” To Funnel Billions Into Left-Wing Causes
Was the real reason behind Senator Elizabeth Warren’s outrage over Mick Mulvaney’s appointment as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) about her own political survival?

The New York Post’s Paul Sperry reports that the CFPB is engaged in a wide-variety of corruption.

Everything from amassing secret ledgers to using penalties to ‘launder,’ funds into left-wing causes. Of course, because the CFPB operates independently of the U.S. Government, a full audit of the agency’s balance sheet have never been done. This sad reality may very well change under Mulvaney’s leadership.
3   marcus   2019 Dec 28, 2:37pm  

:
APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
put all the bad guys in jail forever.


He can't do that. That would just be another "coup attempt."®
4   marcus   2019 Dec 28, 2:43pm  

:
I would have liked to see some big trials and maybe convictions in the banking world, if that could have been done. But sadly I don't believe a few individuals behind a conspiracy existed. There was an entire system of over the counter high tech derivatives that came in to existence, giving hundreds or thousands of idiots in banking the belief that a certain percentage of bad mortgages weren't going to be too big of a problem. They would be absorbed by the financial markets, much as people can buy stocks when they are overpriced right before a bear market. It evolved over time.

It was a free market experiment.

If someone should be punished, it should be the people that managed to get a bunch of "quants" to write up securities and to get those securities rated higher than they should have been - becasue they were too complex for people to understand. "Let the buyer beware" was the idea, even if based in part on lies. So much for efficiant markets theory. Not so different from the business practices that Trump sometimes practices (e.g. his "university").

But we have no problem with that. That's Trump. That's different.
5   Ceffer   2019 Dec 28, 3:54pm  

The Dems and the Obama Administration, Clinton Foundation etc.should have had banners reading "The Bribe and Pardon Machines are Open For Business".
6   mell   2019 Dec 28, 5:09pm  

Thanks Obummer! He also orchestrated the auto bailout heist, fucking over bondholders. The nerve to complain about Trump while Obummer told all responsible savers to go fuck themselves by tearing up their contracts and bonds. 4 more years of MAGA to finally eradicate all of the race-baiting Obummer failure!

#MAGA
7   Ceffer   2019 Dec 28, 6:30pm  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
Obama should have sicc'ed his wife Michelle on them in their cells to fuck their asses to death.

That would have been a Netflix series everyone would have wanted to watch.

Yes, the IPP in action is the ultimate diversity inclusion. I was watching the Witcher on Netflix, and I had no idea there were so many heroic blacks in medieval Poland. There are even black elves.
8   komputodo   2019 Dec 28, 6:45pm  

Patrick says
How it was that Barack Obama came on-duty in January of 2009 and got away with doing absolutely nothing about all that for eight years remains one of the abiding mysteries of life on earth.

Not really a mystery.....just get the MSM working with him to keep it covered up...anyone who wants to talk about it is called a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist...keep the politicians paid..
9   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Dec 28, 6:52pm  

Ceffer says
Yes, the IPP in action is the ultimate diversity inclusion. I was watching the Witcher on Netflix, and I had no idea there were so many heroic blacks in medieval Poland. There are even black elves.


You're fucking with us, right? I was planning on starting that series. Tell me it isn't super pozzed.

I already heard Triss isn't a redhead, which is bad enough.
10   HeadSet   2019 Dec 28, 7:01pm  

the dude from country wide should have got some time. Mozzilo or what ever his name was

Angelo Mozilo. Not just him, though.

11   Onvacation   2019 Dec 28, 7:08pm  

HPatrick says
Obama got away with doing absolutely nothing about all banking fraud


He did run out the statute of limitations.
12   mell   2019 Dec 28, 7:09pm  

Ah the good ole "friends of Mozilo" criminal gang.
13   Ceffer   2019 Dec 28, 7:10pm  

NoCoupForYou says
You're fucking with us, right? I was planning on starting that series. Tell me it isn't super pozzed.

Well, I played the playstation game so I have a vested interest.

However, ignore a few nauseated risings in the throat because diversity shoe horning, and it ain't half bad. Already had the black on white thing a few episodes in. Some pretty risque soft porn type nudity as incentive outposts to keep watching along the way.
14   theoakman   2019 Dec 28, 7:11pm  

He set the tone for too big to jail. It was 8 years of nonstop banking scandal ending with massive profits, fines (government gets their take), and no admission of wrong doing.
16   SunnyvaleCA   2019 Dec 28, 9:04pm  

Go along to get along. The unelected deep state is all a huge club designed to generate enormous profits and power for the people in the club.

I used to debate a colleague that the USA isn't as corrupt as China. That was before what Trump has exposed. Now I'm not so sure.
17   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 2:35am  

theoakman says
He set the tone for too big to jail. It was 8 years of nonstop banking scandal ending with massive profits


What are you talking about ? The scandal was at the beginning or mostly before his admin., actually all those investment banking firm mergers and failures, and the fed rescuing some, TARP, all that stuff was 2008 before Obama even started.

It was still unfolding somewhat very early in Obama's first term., For example the bailout of Ford, GM and Chryler. To say Obama set the tone for "too big to fail?" Wtf ? Have you been hanging out with TPB ?

What are you smoking bro ?
18   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 2:49am  

Ceffer says
The Dems and the Obama Administration, Clinton Foundation etc.should have had banners reading "The Bribe and Pardon Machines are Open For Business".


I see you've joined the "who can pull the wildest nonsense out of their ass" club.

The idea that democrats deserve more blame than republicans for not seeking justice and consequences for the mortgage crisis of 2008 ridiculous.

I think the impeachment has gotten to you people, and you're trying to lash out and say OBama was as corrupt as Trump. Good luck with that.
19   NuttBoxer   2019 Dec 29, 9:20am  

Bankers run the country, not presidents.
20   Ceffer   2019 Dec 29, 10:49am  

NuttBoxer says
Bankers run the country, not presidents.


Bankers and corporations run the country utilizing the extra legal intelligence and information gathering Thuggee agencies, not presidents. The portal opened completely when they blew Kennedy's head off with the co-operation of organized crime. Most Presidents have been their stooges since.

There, fixed it.
21   WookieMan   2019 Dec 29, 4:44pm  

marcus says
The idea that democrats deserve more blame than republicans for not seeking justice and consequences for the mortgage crisis of 2008 ridiculous.

I think the impeachment has gotten to you people, and you're trying to lash out and say OBama was as corrupt as Trump. Good luck with that.

Not sure that was his point wholly. As you say in comment 20, things were unfolding during Obama's first term. Doesn't matter if it was laws/regulation passed during Clinton or Bush. Fact was he had an opportunity to take a stand against the bullshit and didn't.

Almost every American felt the consequences of these ass holes and Obama looked the other way while people suffered. Just like a murdered family member, putting the killer in jail won't bring them back, but at least the murderer doesn't get to live a normal life after fucking you over. Between rating agencies and banks there are probably 100's (maybe thousands) of people that should be in jail and they're not. That was indisputably Obama looking the other way and his justice department.
22   Patrick   2019 Dec 29, 5:37pm  

WookieMan says
Between rating agencies and banks there are probably 100's (maybe thousands) of people that should be in jail and they're not.


Agreed.

The ratings agencies willingly gave shitty mortgage-backed bonds AAA ratings while being perfectly aware that they were shit. When called to account, they claimed the ratings were just their "opinions" and were protected by the First Amendment.

"In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain." Perfect definition of what the ratings agencies did. It was not protected speech, but simply FRAUD.

But of course the even bigger criminals were Goldman Sachs, who were selling these shit bonds to pension funds at the same time they were betting these bonds would default, by taking out insurance with AIG. They KNEW the bonds would default and yet sold them as AAA. More intentional deception for unlawful gain, more fraud.

When it turned out that AIG would go bankrupt in paying off Goldman, Goldman arranged a taxpayer-funded bailout for AIG. They could do that because guess what? They were placing their people at the highest levels of the US government, like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

Goldman won't be prosecuted. Very much like the Saudi influence on US politics. The Saudis can murder thousands of Americans on 9/11, fund Islamic terror around the world, and chop up Khashoggi, and never have to pay a thing for it.

All the media talk about "racism" is just a well-funded bullshit distraction and division tactic so we won't talk about THEM.
23   theoakman   2019 Dec 29, 5:49pm  

Pretty much every employee of Well's Fargo who participated in using customers personal data to open up fake accounts should be in jail.
24   Patrick   2019 Dec 29, 6:16pm  

theoakman says
Pretty much every employee of Well's Fargo who participated in using customers personal data to open up fake accounts should be in jail.


Agreed, but they won't be, because $3,760,000 in lobbying. A small price to pay for freedom to commit fraud.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyists?cycle=2019&id=D000019743
25   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 7:03pm  

:
If it was hundreds or thousands of bankers, why wouldn't it be congresses place to go after them ? What laws were broken ?

And actually, if people are honest about what happened it's not the way you guys describe. I believe most of those bankers, the hundreds or thousands that made it happen didn't do it knowingly. Even Goldman who surely did in the end use it's influence to avoid legal consequences and to prevent AIG from causing it to lose billions.

They were convinced that they had created a system that would work. Tranches, CDOs, Swaps and all. They had securitized everything in a way that they believed would work, including ways to hedge the risk. When you get quants pricing the things with algorithms nobody understands but a couple of faulty assumptions, it made a lot of people complacent about the risk.

It might have worked if weren't for the lack of other opportunities in our economy leading too many people getting in to "trading" in homes. "Flipping" homes. Including way to many people that weren't properly capitalized, buying and selling homes, taking out liar loans. Getting in front of the real buyers that needed a long term home, and bidding prices up .That's what the system couldn't handle. And that was caused by people at the local end.

Brokers (both R.E. and Mortgage) were motivated by fees and commissions, same in banks who didn't have the guidance to say no, this is wrong. It was a bubble that blew up slowly. Eventually it was obvious to a lot of us. Shacks selling for half a million, bought by someone with no income hoping to fix it up real quick. and sell it for 100k more. That's the thing that was not accounted for in the high tech design of the financial system behind it. Otherwise it might have actually worked. THat is if everyone was honest.

But this was America. Apparently we loves us our liars and our lying. That's just who we are. Otherwise there could be no Trump.

SO yeah, the true causes of the problem was too overly distributed among too many parties. Sure you could have sent a few high level executives to prison. I don't see how that would have changed anything. I don't blame Obama as much as I do republican congress in the aftermath for not coming up with better laws to prevent it from happening again.
26   Bd6r   2019 Dec 29, 7:06pm  

I wonder how parties voted for bailour - did it pass with mostly R or D votes?
27   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 7:10pm  

:
By the way, I noticed here in LA about 2 years ago, hearing a lot of ads on radio for people to get in to flipping homes again for some company, that provides I don't know exactly what , I think some financing in exchange for much of the profit. Those ads were going for a while, maybe a year, but I haven't been hearing them much in the past year. It's hard to know, becasue I don't ,listen to the radio that much, but I think it stopped. I don't think their timing worked out.

But sadly if we get in to an inflationary market, i.e. with the dollar dropping in value, (the kind that Trump would seriously love to cause), you can be sure they will be back.
28   Bd6r   2019 Dec 29, 7:14pm  

OK checked it - bipartisan vote for bailing our banksters in senate, in congress D's voted for it, R's against. So, blame both but Ds more
29   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 7:16pm  

:
Please share source. Is this bailing out bankers or banks ?

The dems were also more behind bailing out Car companies (GM, Ford, and Chryler) basically anything Obama wanted to do. THat deal ended up making the government money.

Bailing out banks, is not the same as bailing out bankers.

If you are talking about TARP, that was a dem controlled congress and the Bush admin., 2008.
30   Bd6r   2019 Dec 29, 7:26pm  

Bailing out banks is very much same as bailing out banksters as they keep their loot. Either let banks go broke and banksters are FREE!!! to jump out of winfow, or nationalize banks that fail ang give banksters NOTHING. As it was done here, fucking banksters are still rich and running the show
31   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 7:32pm  

:
Yes, but when you're at the precipice in an economy where banks play such a big role, bailing out banks, that symbolizes the government throwing it's weight behind them at a time that otherwise might have led to a much worse crash, it's to assure the people that they need to calm down, and everything is going to be okay.

Many rational people see that move as more about risk aversion, avoiding a much worse global outcome that couldn't even be comprehended, rather than about protecting the bankers that had in part caused the situation.
32   marcus   2019 Dec 29, 7:48pm  

:
While we're on this subject. Why is it not a problem to have a president that benefits so much financially if the dollar were to suddenly lose half it's value ?

Why is that not a conflict of interest ?

Think about it. Suppose he has $30 billion in real estate holdings with 85% debt. That's 4.5 billion in equity. If the dollar dropped 50% in value and financial assets held their value, they would now be worth 60 billion. That raises his equity to $34.5 billion, with dollars that are worth half as much, so in real dollars his equity goes from $4.5 billion to $17.25 billion.

Maybe I'm way off. Say it's $15 billion with 1.5 billion of his own equity. If the dollar gets chopped in half (like it did in the 70s), it would be worth 30 billion, with his equity jumping by maybe as much as 15 billion (now worth half in 2019 dollars) , so that's 1.5 billion growing to 9 billion in real dollars.

Has there ever been President with this much conflict of interest in American history ? If the President's policies can affect the value of the dollar, then I would say no, we never have.

Can we just maybe possibly at least agree that Trump doesn't see the same downside to inflation that most of us see ?

I know, I know, fortunately for us, Trump isn't that kind of person. He's never thinking about himself or his self interest. He's all about saving America.
33   Bd6r   2019 Dec 29, 8:09pm  

Moral Hazard - bail them out, they will keep doing stupid stuff knowing they will be bailed out. If we are afraid of crash then nationalize banks and break them up and leave fucking banksters with $1. That was done in Sweden. As it stands now, Protectors of poor people rewarded banksters for robbing the nation, paying themselves BONUSES! and then going broke
34   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Dec 29, 8:48pm  

rd6B says
Moral Hazard - bail them out, they will keep doing stupid stuff knowing they will be bailed out. If we are afraid of crash then nationalize banks and break them up and leave fucking banksters with $1. That was done in Sweden. As it stands now, Protectors of poor people rewarded banksters for robbing the nation, paying themselves BONUSES! and then going broke


Iceland, also. The Althing was corrupt, they would not resign or consider anything less than a painless bailout for the banksters while massively increasing the national debt.

20,000 people (in a country of only a few hundred thousand) basically blockaded the Parliament and the 20 cops on duty count not possibly break them up.

Investors who fail to police Management deserve no mercy. Ram it down their throats like John Holmes in 1981.
35   mell   2019 Dec 29, 9:27pm  

NoCoupForYou says
rd6B says
Moral Hazard - bail them out, they will keep doing stupid stuff knowing they will be bailed out. If we are afraid of crash then nationalize banks and break them up and leave fucking banksters with $1. That was done in Sweden. As it stands now, Protectors of poor people rewarded banksters for robbing the nation, paying themselves BONUSES! and then going broke


Iceland, also. The Althing was corrupt, they would not resign or consider anything less than a painless bailout for the banksters while massively increasing the national debt.

20,000 people (in a country of only a few hundred thousand) basically blockaded the Parliament and the 20 cops on duty count not possibly break them up.

Investors who fail to police Management deserve no mercy. Ram it down their throats like John Holmes in 1981.


Agreed the only problem is that usually after the right thing has been done the other juggernaut - the government - takes over because they have done something once right for the people and now they think they can run the banks and companies better (and enrich themselves) - which they can't. They are equally disastrous - just look at Sweden - if not worse as they have all the firepower and govt coercion to intimidate truthers and protestors. What should be done is just this: fire/prosecute all participants and the rest of the workers, place the bank into receivership, sell all assets, distribute the remaining funds per enforceable contracts and after bankruptcy have another private bidder takeover if there's interest, if not, let it rest in peace. Letting corrupt bureaucrats run things instead of corrupt bankstas is not a solution.
36   WookieMan   2019 Dec 29, 10:41pm  

marcus says
While we're on this subject. Why is it not a problem to have a president that benefits so much financially if the dollar were to suddenly lose half it's value ?

Why is that not a conflict of interest ?

Not sure how the executive branch can't be in conflict of interest constantly. Think about it.
37   marcus   2019 Dec 30, 12:47am  

WookieMan says
Think about it.


Avoiding my question almost completely. Wrong. We've never seen anything remotely similar to this.

If we had a 1970s kind of inflation, Trump stands to make somewhere between 5 and $20 BILLION, that's with a B (in real 2019 dollars).

Much less on the deflation side would presumably ruin him.
38   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2019 Dec 30, 3:14am  

Senators from both parties voted to confirm Hank Paulson as US Treasury Secretary. Hank headed up Goldman Sachs previously, during the period that resulted in a record fraud settlement by Goldman with the USG.
39   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2019 Dec 30, 3:26am  

marcus says
What laws were broken ?
Knowingly misrepresenting the risk of securities you sell is fraud. Money laundering for cartels and terrorists (HSBC) is a crime.

Comments 1 - 40 of 49       Last »     Search these comments

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions