Bernanke, Geithner Testify On Bank Plan, AIG (LIVE VIDEO)

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, appearing at a subcommittee hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, face questions on the government's oversight of AIG and its plan to relieve banks' troubled assets.

Watch live:

Comments

[kkdalloway]

I despise that Bachmann woman! It frightens me that she was actually elected to congress by American citizens.

[Dude77007]

I am watching the HFSC hearings today. I am appalled at what I saw:

After each member got their face time asking a question, THEY GOT UP AND LEFT!! Towards the end of the hearing there were mostly empty chairs.

We all know now that the members never read any of the legislation regarding the Stimulus or the Bail Out packages. They have admitted it. Now they can be seen in full view of everyone that they could not be bothered to stick around and listen to what was said. All they were interested in was the face time. THEIR STAFF LEFT ALSO, so don't tell me they will be informed about the proceedings in another manner. What could have been more important that they had to attend to?

Unbelievable

[The5thW]

The idea of a serially occupied suburban house as an "asset" along with the fantasy that all these scams involved actual physical houses at their base, rather than made-up ones, needs to be vigorously repudiated. Money and community backed by actual value: food, shelter, clothing, and durational human connection at a sustainable level cannot be created by this globalist elite because it is the antithesis of growth, debt, and war, and the accumulation of multigenerational power.

[chris stl]

That was a contentious hearing .... I think, both Geithner and Bernanke held up pretty good.
Happy days are ahead folks. Have patience!!
TaurusTrader
http://www.taurustrader.wordpress.com

[brookmo]

This is such a joke. "Nero fiddled while Rome burned". Bailing out all of these institutions is doing nothing to help me or anyone else find employment. THEY DON'T GET IT. IF WE CAN'T SHOP THEIR COMPANIES ARE DOOMED ANYWAY AND WE CAN't BUY WITHOUT INCOME!!!!!

[vinny]

Bernanke can't/won't describe when/how the system failed.

[monicaangela]

But he knows. What a shame.

[Gabrielle]

SOON....THEY WILL TELL US ABOUT THE ABOMIBATION THE LAST 8 YEARS HAVE BEEN...THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT, BUT IT IS VERY COMPLICATED.

AND THE TASK IS GREAT AND CAUTION IS VERY IMPORTANT....NOT EVERYBODY HAS BODY GUARDS, REMEMBER.

[aweissnet]

Frauludent conveyance was mentioned, and brushed under the rug, in the broad "we're looking into all legal avenues."

At the end of it all, they are not held to the same standards we are. We'd get locked up trying to defraud and then do a bankruptcy. You can have a contract, just as they did, to transfer an asset, but it's still considered a "fraudulent conveyance," and it's null and void, the assets available to the creditors, because it was a fraudulent conveyance. The contract is null and void under that context. Now, for AIG, this is not the case, because their contracts are more more binding?

None of this is legal. It is a sham.

Folks, this is a dog-and-pony show and none of it means anything. We are being robbed. The financial system is broken and cannot be fixed. We're bankrupting the country and ourselves to save thieves and put them in power.

[Ironquill]

Isn't it interesting how all of this evolved to handing additional leverage to the money management firms who are being courted by Geithner for the toxic asset plan?

"Hey, if you threaten to tax our profits on this deal, we won't play."

Geithner's plan is now too big to fail. He'll do anything to sweeten the deal for the "private investors" to get them to play. If they overpay, we taxpayers will foot the bill to the downside.

As for us retail investors--"let them eat bank stocks". Crap Shoot.

[The5thW]

Financial Services is not an "industry" but social parasitism. An infantile culture let lawyers legalize what is considered crime and "sin" universally. Banking should be a public non profit service like water and police. Use electronic spying to spy on the hidden assets of the top 100 families behind these scams--not those Americans who aren't impersonating patriotism for gain--and recover the money and property, or lock these people up.

[bison1]

Why didn’t financial journalist inform the public how A.I.G. is interwoven into the fabric of Main Street economic activity? We were never informed that A.I.G. was responsible for one out of three jobs and that it had insured the lion share of pension funds and 401(k) plans in the nation. Neither were we told of how many foreign banks were bailed out American banks. Not that this excuses the bonuses, but we need a better understanding of how A.I.G. touches our lives– and why it was to big to fail. Once again, we have business/financial journalist not thoroughly informing the general public.

[000Jade000]

They don't want us to be informed. They're trying to rip us off a couple more times still!

[Ironquill]

Right. It was, by and large, not the actual operating companies which caused the problem.

It's my understanding that It was the holding company which did most of the damage, and within the holding company, the financial products division, a sort of in-house hedge fund. I think that it was in fact a systemic risk to let the holding company fail.

Poor job by the media in differentiating all of this. And really, though egregious, the bonus program is the least of our worries.

[cyrano1]

What we know after the fact has nothing to do with what we would have tolerated from the MSM before the crash. We tuned them out. Those who did warn us were dismissed as alarmists. Human nature!

[000Jade000]

We don't have to ask for resignations?

It appears that the law that outlines how regulators correct banks calls for replacing management amongst other things (i.e. receivership):

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode12/usc_sec_12_00001831---o000-.html

[000Jade000]

Interesting . . . I was looking for a line of the US tax code, and came across a neocon site called White House 2. Has anyone seen this mess before?:

http://whitehouse2.org/home

[Jim Gilliam]

It's not a neocon site! It's bipartisan, anyone can join, and the priorities are determined by what people endorse or oppose.

"White House 2 is completely independent of the U.S. government, the official White House website at whitehouse.gov, and any political party. The only ideology here is the collective will of the American people."

[Buddhabman]

Geithner must answer cautiously. It's the nature of the beast.

[Ironquill]

Is this the beast who feasts with easy glee on freebees to would-be parolees?

[Ironquill]

Based on gut instinct I don't care for Geithner, and I think the approach to banks and the toxic asset plan is ill-conceived.

But if there is anything which could generage sympathy in my mind for G and plan, it's some more of these hearings by grand-standing, self-serving, uninformed legislators of both stripes.

What a farce.

[000Jade000]

Most of the questioners weren't too bad.

Here's another take on the G plan:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/03/more-musings-on-geithner-plan.html

[Ironquill]

Thanks. I had forgotten about that site.
What gripes me about the toxic asset plan is the lack of provision for retail investors.
You might say, well you're lucky to be excluded. Maybe so.
But they're trying to offset, in our minds, small business loans, to sub prime lending for magnates. I don't think it equates.
And I think the best deals will be in the beginning because they need participation, and the funds therefore have the leverage. The banks' hand will be forced by the FDIC. But where is the retail investor in all of this? We're stuck trying to outguess the stock market.

[outnow]

Average American lost 40 to 50% of their retirements plans - IRAs and 401(k). AIG was lent to AIG and some "insureds" did not lose anything because they were with AIG. Taxpayers had to pay 40 billion dollars. Wow! Geitner taestified that without the bailout, American would have lost 70% of their retirement.

This is really disconcerting. And these same people want to privatize Social Security. Meanwhile, these Masters of the Universe pay themselves mega-bonuses.

This is good work if you can get it. Where do you sign up to be a Master of the Universe? Toxic assets, toxic spills cleaned up by the Superfund. Talk about privatizing profits and socializing losses!

Now the FDIC is being collateralized by collateralized debt backed by a toxic asset. There is little public confidence in the government and the regulators. Seems like the goverment is being run for the benefit of Goldman Sacks. Lack of transparency and the appearance of impropriety is enormous.

[vinny]

notice how Bernanke was chuckling while evading the question of why americans lost 40 to 50% of their life's savings...

[000Jade000]

The guy made absolutely no sense. Sounded like he meant that 40-50% of retirement plans were lost, but AIG's counter-parties were paid out 100%? That's my best guess, because what he kept saying was that 40-50% of Americans had lost their retirements so that AIG could keep 100% of their retirements.

[Ironquill]

Kind of sounds like subprime lending to magnates, topped off with CDO's from the FDIC. Haven't we seen this show recently?

[lilskye]

Is there a way to see what has already passed on this stream? I am SO BLOODY ANGRY at the moment. I was watching this on MSNBC and AS USUAL, David Shuster and the rest of the yappers over there starting blabbing over the most crucial answers of the whole thing:

Those given to Ron Paul....who was asking the most pertinent base question about the structure of the entire system over decades. I desperately wanted to hear what Bernanke & Geithner asnwered and instead David Shuster started yammering and they all cut away!!!!!

I came online to see if I could find it and see it is being carried live here, but too late to hear my answers!

Is there anywhere to see a replay of the whole hearing without a bunch of egomaniac pundit yappers chiming in?????

[000Jade000]

Yes. Wait about an hour or so after it's over, and then go check the C-SPAN site for the full hearing. You can fast forward to where you were from there.

[lilskye]

Thank YOU!!!!!

God save us from these news people who think what they think is more important than the actual speech or program we are tuning in to hear! LOL!!!!

[cyrano1]

CNN had streaming live video on their website without the interrupting yapping heads whose simplistic recaps pretty much miss the real content of what's actually going on.