dcb

With No Exit Strategy, Bernanke's Fed Turns to Lobbying

It's amazing how many people on this site make comments without understanding how the fed works. they need to read more of your posts!!!


On Jul 22 12:03 AM Moon Kil Woong wrote:

> If the Fed's mandate is only to maintain price stability that would
> be asking for it to cut its own throat. The simple fact is the dollar
> was more stable the hundred or so years without the fed than with
> the Fed who has depreciated it some 90 some odd percent in less than
> a decade.
>
> Likewise, the US should bar the fed from lobbying since its purpose
> is purely to act on the behalf of the American public. But they argue
> thay are a normal private company. Normal is not the word for a private
> company backed by the US government with regulatory authority which
> a holds a monopoly on US bond sales. Furthermore, it is granted laws
> barring people from knowing who owns its shares, how it spends its
> money, and laws exempting it from public audits, reserve requirements,
> and every other financial rules known to man.

With No Exit Strategy, Bernanke's Fed Turns to Lobbying

wholesale price inflation was 1.8% just last month!!!
we already are in stagflation. don't compare YOY. just look at the last five months. no real increasing economic activity but commodity prices have gone up huge.


On Jul 21 05:11 PM dybydx wrote:

> the price stability has been the primary role for the central bank
> of canada.
>
> they aim to hold inflation between 1% and 3%. and over the past 20
> yrs, they've been averaging like 2.1%. no one criticized their role
> in any economic booms or busts. a consistent 2% inflation is fair
> and reasonable for most ppl who had to rely on the currency.
>
> they dont do stupid stuff like "trying to maximize employment" or
> otherwise manhandle the economy. its entirely up to the executive
> branch to determine whether or not a bailout is warranted.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Note, the trustees of AIG are picked by NY fed whcih has the ability to fire and over rule them. expect aig to behavie in way best for bankers not taxpayers. the AIG sham continues.

AIG Names Six for Board as Trustees Assert Control (Update2)
Share | Email | Print | A A A

By Hugh Son

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., the insurer bailed out by the U.S., named six new director candidates in the first nominations since the trustees managing the government stake vowed to overhaul the board.

The candidates are Harvey Golub, Laurette Koellner, Christopher Lynch, Arthur Martinez, Steve Miller and Douglas Steenland, New York-based AIG said today in a statement.

The trustees, named in January, are under pressure to turn around the money-losing insurer after the bailout was expanded to as much as $182.5 billion. The trustees told Congress last week that they’d selected five executives to join the board and that AIG will nominate one new member.

“The board needs to move very quickly to re-establish the credibility of AIG’s management team,” said Phillip Phan, professor of management at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore, in an interview before the announcement.

The insurer’s current board worked with the trustees in picking the candidates, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Edward Liddy said today in the statement. AIG’s annual meeting will be held on June 30, the insurer said today. It was previously scheduled for May 13.

The names of all the candidates excluding Koellner, 54, a former president at Boeing Co., were reported last week.

Miller, 67, is chairman of Delphi Corp. and a former chief financial officer of Chrysler Corp. Steenland, 57, is the ex- Northwest Airlines CEO. Lynch, 51, is a retired partner at consulting firm KPMG International.

Golub, Martinez

Golub, 70, was CEO of American Express Co. from 1993 to 2001. Martinez, 69, was CEO of Sears Roebuck & Co. from 1995 until 2000.

“The new candidates have extensive experience with large complex organizations and in the areas of financial services, accounting and restructuring,” Liddy said in the statement.

The trustees, appointed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, are Jill Considine, former chairman of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.; Chester Feldberg, former chairman of Barclays Americas, and Douglas Foshee, chief executive officer of natural gas producer El Paso Corp.

The director candidates will be listed in an AIG proxy to be issued this month, Foshee told lawmakers last week in prepared testimony. The board will have nine new directors including Liddy, Suzanne Nora Johnson and Dennis Dammerman, each appointed in the past year, he said.

Fresh Start

“If AIG is to succeed, it needs a fresh start -- a reset, if you will,” Foshee said at the May 13 hearing.

The trustees wield the government’s 77.9 percent stake in AIG and control votes on board members, asset sales, mergers and selection of top executives, according to a regulatory filing.

The overseers will vote in a way that “maximizes shareholder value” said Peter Bakstansky, a spokesman for the panel, in an April 6 interview.

AIG directors Virginia Rometty, Michael Sutton and Edmund Tse have said they are stepping down from the board. Stephen Bollenbach, appointed last year as lead independent director, won’t stand for re-election at the annual meeting, said a person familiar with the situation. The person asked not to be identified because AIG hadn’t announced Bollenbach’s plans.

A voice mail left for Bollenbach wasn’t immediately returned.

AIG was first rescued in September with an $85 billion credit line after a liquidity squeeze caused by credit-default swaps the insurer sold to banks. The company agreed in September to hand over a controlling stake to the U.S. and to replace Robert Willumstad as chairman and CEO. Liddy was picked by then- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The insurer’s bailout expanded to $122.8 billion, $152.5 billion and then $182.5 billion as the government sought to prevent losses at banks that did business with AIG. The company said it owes about $46 billion of a $60 billion Federal Reserve credit line as of last week.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugh Son in New York at [e-mail]

Connecticut AG: 'Time to Shatter Old Boys Club of Ratings Agencies'

Another article showing state AG's doing the Feds work. Further proof of government involvement and turning a blind eye to what the real situation is.

Cuomo Treads Where SEC Failed on ‘Pay-to-Play’ Rules (Update1)
Share | Email | Print | A A A

By Gillian Wee and Jason Kelly

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo raised the stakes in his attack on “pay-to-play” in the public pension-fund market as Carlyle Group agreed to a $20 million settlement that limits campaign contributions to officials who oversee state money.

Carlyle, the world’s second-largest private-equity firm, also agreed yesterday not to use placement agents to solicit investment business from public retirement plans nationwide. It is the first money manager to adopt Cuomo’s new “code of reform” for the municipal-pension market, though it probably won’t be the last, said Elizabeth Nowicki, a professor at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

While New York state has already banned the use of placement agents, Cuomo has gone a step further. The code he seeks to have adopted industrywide prohibits money managers from doing business anywhere in the country with a public pension plan for two years after making political donations to officials who can influence the fund’s investment decisions. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed similar restrictions in 1999, though it backed off amid opposition from the investment industry and politicians.

“The onus is going to be on the private-equity firms to really market their results,” Nowicki said. “They need to go out and get business the old-fashioned way.”

Under the SEC’s 1999 proposal, investment advisers would have been barred from managing pension money for two years after making a political contribution. The measure also would have required money managers with government clients to keep records of their contributions. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said April 21 that the agency is re-evaluating those rules.

No Criminal Charges

Carlyle executives will not be subject to any criminal liability under the settlement, Cuomo said yesterday at a press conference. Founded by David Rubenstein with William Conway and Daniel D’Aniello in 1987, the firm manages about $85.5 billion in assets, second in the private-equity industry to Blackstone Group LP of New York.

Cuomo said yesterday he also is investigating Riverstone Holdings LLC, a New York-based private-equity firm that has a joint venture with Carlyle. Funds managed by Carlyle alone or with Riverstone received about $730 million in investment commitments from the New York fund. Riverstone declined to comment.

“This is a revolutionary agreement,” Cuomo, 51, said. “It ends pay-to-play. It bans the selling of access. It puts the political power brokers out of business.”

The Public Pension Fund Code of Conduct is the latest such rulebook developed by Cuomo’s office, which has also created codes of conduct for the student-loan, Web-access and health- insurance industries.

Cuomo’s Style

“A pattern is emerging where Cuomo gets a major player in an industry to agree to a settlement or a code of conduct and the rest of the industry tends to follow,” said Jacob Zamansky, principal of Zamansky and Associates, a securities law firm in New York. “It appears to be a successful strategy which will continue.”

Asked how soon to expect other settlements in the pension probe, Cuomo said he had brought “a number of criminal and civil cases and we will have more over the coming weeks.”

Cuomo typically also seeks legislation to help bring about reforms. In the case of the student-loan industry, New York passed a law aimed at ending the conflicts of interest. U.S. Congress passed a law modeled on New York’s.

Task Force

Cuomo began to investigate the $122 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund about two years ago. Since then, his probe has expanded beyond New York and a multistate task force was formed. His office and the SEC say they are investigating money managers and their placement agents who used ties to public officials and kickbacks to buy and sell access to the $2 trillion in U.S. public pension systems.

Quadrangle Group LLC and Odyssey Investment Partners are among the firms whose public investment contracts are being investigated by Cuomo and the SEC.

“These problems have existed for quite some time and they didn’t get the attention because the amounts of capital committed to private equity were relatively insignificant,” said David De Weese, a partner with private-equity firm Paul Capital Partners in New York. His firm manages about $7 billion in assets and doesn’t use placement agents.

“Talking directly to investors and building those relationships is a good thing,” he said.

Municipal Market

Municipal market regulations bar investment bankers who arrange bond sales from doing business with public officials after contributing to their campaigns and require underwriters to deal fairly with their clients. Those rules don’t apply to public pension funds.

“Given where we have been, this is a tremendous step forward,” Orin Kramer, chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council, said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Prohibiting political contributions is absolutely the way to go.”

Cuomo has charged several individuals in the probe, including Henry “Hank” Morris, 55, for orchestrating the kickback scheme by exploiting work he did to advance former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s political career; former deputy comptroller David Loglisci, 39, for facilitating and benefiting from the plot; former state Liberal Party chairman Raymond Harding, 74, for pocketing illicit payments; and Saul Meyer, 38, a Dallas money manager for Aldus Equity Partners, for paying kickbacks.

Civil Actions

The defendants deny wrongdoing and face SEC civil actions, too. In all, about $5 billion of the New York state pension fund’s $9.5 billion in alternative investments made in the period 2003-2007 were tainted by kickbacks, the SEC said.

Barack Obama’s administration also has been drawn into the controversy: Steven Rattner, head of the president’s auto- industry rescue efforts since February, headed New York-based Quadrangle when the private-equity firm paid Morris about $1.1 million in finder fees for a $100 million investment from New York’s pension fund. Adam Miller, a spokesman for Rattner and Quadrangle, declined to comment; neither has been charged.

Quadrangle also handles the personal and philanthropic finances of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom Rattner supported through his chairmanship of Democrats for Bloomberg during the mayor’s 2005 re-election campaign.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. Arthur Levitt, a former SEC chairman and adviser to Carlyle, is a member of the Bloomberg LP board of directors.

‘Ill-Gotten’ Gains

Other firms identified by the SEC, whose complaint sought to impose unspecified fines and forfeiture of “ill-gotten” gains, include Odyssey Investment Partners and Liberty Oak Capital Fund. Joseph Kuo, a spokesman for Odyssey, declined comment. Jennifer Murff, a spokeswoman for Liberty Oak, didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Cuomo said May 1 he is widening his probe to include middlemen who weren’t properly registered or licensed. Ellen Nachtigall Biben, Cuomo’s top public corruption prosecutor, said the office would issue more than 100 subpoenas to investment firms and their agents.

Carlyle Group employees, including co-founder Rubenstein, donated at least $118,000 to Hevesi, according to New York campaign-finance records. Carlyle was paid $13.5 million in fees by the New York state pension fund for the year ending March 31, 2008, according to the pension fund’s annual report.

“We have reached a successful resolution with the Attorney General and strongly support his efforts to implement reforms that usher in a new era of transparency and accountability into the pension fund investment process,” Carlyle said yesterday in a statement.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gillian Wee in New York at [e-mail]; Jason Kelly in New York at [e-mail]
Last Updated: May 15, 2009 12:03 EDT

* Delicious
* Digg
* Facebook
* LinkedIn
* Newsvine
* Propeller
* Yahoo! Buzz

Connecticut AG: 'Time to Shatter Old Boys Club of Ratings Agencies'

Just to let you know I have done my best to provide Sen Grassley with the evidence that the market has been manipulated by goldman. In the material I sent him was the article showing goldman's prop trading desk activity and the market moves. Because so few of our public servants appear to have the best interests of the american people at heart, please supply him with the evidence he needs to pressure the SEC to do its job. Easy to find the info on the web

Connecticut AG: 'Time to Shatter Old Boys Club of Ratings Agencies'

Just another aspect of the conspiracy to defraud the american people that doesn't exist. It is hard to pull a fast one if the agencies you depend on aren't allowed to play ball. Keep writing blumenthal and cuomo to voice support. they are going to have a tough time and deserve to know people support them.

the added piece I find interesting:FBI probes possible insider trading by SEC lawyers
FBI investigating possible insider trading by 2 SEC enforcement attorneys

* Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
* On Friday May 15, 2009, 12:16 pm EDT

*
Buzz up!
* Print

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal prosecutors and the FBI have been investigating possible illegal insider trading by two Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorneys who were in a position to receive sensitive information about agency probes of public companies.

The SEC's inspector general, David Kotz, found that the frequent stock trades over a two-year period by the pair raised suspicions of insider trading. Earlier this year, he referred the matter to the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington.

That office, together with the FBI, "is conducting an investigation of possible criminal and civil violations," Kotz told SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro in a memo dated March 3.

The memo and Kotz's report of his investigation were provided by the office of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has been an active critic of the SEC's operations.

Kotz's report also found that the SEC "has essentially no compliance system in place to ensure that ... employees, with the tremendous amount of nonpublic information they have at their disposal, do not engage in insider trading themselves." The agency's disclosure and compliance requirements is based on the honor system and there is no way to determine whether an employee fails to report a transaction.

"We take seriously even the suggestion that any SEC employee would engage in insider trading," according to a statement from the agency. "We note that the (inspector general's) report neither accuses any SEC employee of insider trading nor concludes that any such conduct took place."

Still, the SEC has been taking "additional steps to enhance our protections against the potential for improper conduct ... (including) developing a new computer system to facilitate reporting and review of securities trading by all SEC personnel, hiring a chief compliance officer, and providing greater clarity of our rule governing the reporting of trades," the statement said.

The FBI investigation and Kotz's findings were first reported Thursday by CBS News. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the bureau would have no comment. Kotz declined to comment Friday.

The SEC enforcement attorneys, one male and one female, each earn more than $160,000 annually and had stock portfolios estimated to be worth more than that, according to Kotz's report. They often e-mailed each other about stocks and their trades, it said. The attorneys and the companies whose stock they were said to have traded weren't named.

For example, they both traded in the stock of a large financial company after being told by a colleague about investigations of the company, a violation of SEC rules, according to the report.

"SEC attorneys are supposed to spend their time trying to prosecute insider trading, not profit from it," Grassley said in a statement Friday. "The SEC needs a better system to deter misconduct and give the public confidence that this sort of thing isn't a systemic problem."

Two months before an SEC investigation of a large health care company was opened, according to Kotz's report, the female attorney sold all her shares in the company. She traded stocks 247 times between in 2006 and 2007, the report said.

Both attorneys "inexplicably" testified to investigators that they failed to see how sending e-mails to the male attorney's brother and sister-in-law from his SEC account could create the appearance that he was improperly sharing nonpublic information with someone outside the SEC, the report says.

The disclosure of Kotz's findings comes at a time when the SEC has been roiled by criticism over its failure to detect the massive pyramid scheme run by fallen money manager Bernard Madoff, despite red flags raised to its staff by outsiders over the course of a decade. Kotz has been investigating the SEC's failure to uncover the fraud by Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market who was a member of SEC advisory committees.

Schapiro, an Obama appointee who took over in January, has taken several actions intended to strengthen and speed the SEC's enforcement efforts, and to tighten internal management and processing of complaints and tips. She has "made it a priority to significantly improve the agency's ethics and compliance programs around employee stock ownership," the SEC statement said.

You think these guys are going to go after goldman for manipulating the market. maybe they wee too busy trading to discover madoff. Lol

Each and every day the plot thickens and hopefully the web tightens on these systemic liars.

A Summary of Q1 Bank Earnings: World, You Just Got Hustled

I never worried about the 2003 recession. it was just the business cycle. the facts this time are very different. If you do not see this I don't know what to tell you. Therefore, it is difficult for me to understand how we can't bottom sig. below the 2000 levels. not just bounce below for a few days and then return to normal. do the research yourself if you don't see it. For all those who want to buy right now I say go ahead. I'd wait for a good size pullback first. I will tell you that the market will be driven up enough to drive in the reatail investor then the banks can short again and take your money once more. I don't think we will hit a lower low. But wait five years and when we blow up again (if not before) the low will be lower then, just like this low was lower than the early 2000's. As long as we keep taking the path that we are and pushing the hard choices down the road we will keep hitting lower lows. Or we may not, but when the dollar collapses instead you and your 14 year old will be up shi... creek without a paddle. You should be thinking long term solution if you are concerned about your kid. not the market goes up or down. I assure you any long term solution will move the market down, and anything that moves it up isn't a solution it's a patch. (like changing accounting rules)


On May 10 02:19 PM jacob1 wrote:

> It's Sunday again, and that means another 5 or 6 ultra negative,
> ultra-short inspired headlines by Seeking Alpha. It's become so
> obvious already, that even my 14-year old niece sees and understands
> the same. What a transparent sham Seeking Alpha has become. I hope
> it quietly goes away -and soon.

A Summary of Q1 Bank Earnings: World, You Just Got Hustled

I think it was a well researched summary of events. I would ask the author to please explain to me the deleveraging of slow and fast money. I thought slow money wasn't leveraged and I am seeing evidence of releveraging in the system not deleveraging. So, stuff that relates to these I don't understand.

You read a nice piece like this that puts facts together, and I get thumbs down for my conspiracy theories. Look, all this doesn't happen unless it is exactly what the government wants. it is the backdoor method of getting funds to the banks out of our pockets without oversight. The amazing thing is that our dear leader (pun intended for those in the know) has remained so popular. I thought the snow job Bush did in the Iraq war was good, but Obama has proven himself the master. The real beauty of true evil is that is is so smooth you never see it and you think it is helping you. For the first time in my 44 years I am actually scared about what is happening to this country. You could get people to protest the war, but protest what is going on right now and you are a anarchist. In fact this stuff isn't even on people's radar.

BlackRock Hires Vice Chair of U.S. Treasury Committee: Public-Private Incest Continues

Another interesting article in the NYT today. Apparently Obama is going out and supporting Dodd for his senate race. I would imagine many on this site know of his ethical difficulties. It mentions he may raise funds because Dodd has gotten money from only five Conn. residents. I do wonder of the money has has raised how much comes from either the hedge fund industry or Insurance Industry. with guys like him running the show is it any wonder that the regulatory structure designed to prevent the financial crisis was removed. Once more Obama manages to talk the talk but not walk the walk. These are the kinds of actions that show what is really going on. The goal appears to be to keep the guy from Conn. in charge of banking regulation from a state that has the most financial companies. Could things be any more clear.

BlackRock Hires Vice Chair of U.S. Treasury Committee: Public-Private Incest Continues

You have got to write the guys who are investigating goldman and AIG
(I forget the name of the congress man) and send this stuff to them I do and the more they know that we know the better.

I watched a bad video about something called the biltaberg (sp) group. looked like crazy conspiracy stuff to me when I first say it, but the more stuff that come out I am actually starting to believe.

Main point is that they picked someone who they knew would do what they wanted (not upset the apple cart) and keep people out of the streets. the hope thing, etc. They fear instability and realized things my soon reach a point where their assets would be in danger unless they got a better spokesman. They got a better spokesman alright, but still the same system. remember how bush used to not tell the truth over and over and it would get reported and believed by the media. I think the same thing is happening. Obama just isn't using the war thing as a way to get what he wants. He will get it because he is such a "nice guy". To the people who are still big fans I tell them please do not listen to what he says. You have to turn that off and look at what he does.

I don't like to trash Obama because I voted for him, but at least with Bush I knew what I was getting. Obama scares me because he speaks with a forked tounge and is so smooth. wall street is getting even more control from the crisis than before. The main point of the video is that the crisis was designed to do exactly that and that is what is happening. scary.