Two years ago, the top honchos at the Fed, Treasury and the Wall Street banks were running around like Chicken Little warning that the world was about to end. This fear mongering, together with a big assist from the elite media (i.e. NPR, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, etc.), earned the banks their $700 billion TARP blank check bailout. This money, along with even more valuable loans and loan guarantees from the Fed and FDIC, enabled them to survive the crisis they had created. As a result, the big banks are bigger and more profitable than ever.
Now, the same crew that tapped our pockets two years ago is eagerly pitching the line that their bailout was good for us. It may be the case the history books are written by the winners, but that doesn't prevent the rest of us from telling the truth.
Let's step back to where we were two years ago. The huge investment bank Bear Stearns had collapsed. So had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants. Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank, had also gone down. AIG, the country's largest insurer, had been put on life support by the government.
At this point, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, the three remaining independent investment banks, all faced runs that would quickly sink them absent government intervention. Citigroup and Bank of America, two of the three largest commercial banks, were also almost certainly insolvent. Many other banks also faced insolvency, especially if they took big losses on their loans to other institutions that were about to go bankrupt.
This was when the Wall Street boys made their mad rush for the public trough. They enlisted everyone that mattered in the effort, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner, then the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
The line was that the economy would collapse if Congress did not immediately rescue the banks. They were prepared to make up anything to save the banks in their hour of need. Bernanke was probably caught in the biggest fabrication when he told Congress that the commercial paper market was shutting down.
If true, this would have been disastrous, since most major companies rely on selling commercial paper to meet their payroll and other routine expenses. If this market shut down, it would mean that even healthy businesses could not pay their workers and suppliers, which would quickly cause the whole economy to grind to a halt.
Bernanke did not bother to inform Congress and the public that he had the ability to single-handedly support the commercial paper market. He waited until the weekend after Congress approved the TARP to announce that he would establish a special Fed lending facility to buy commercial paper.
In reality, the Fed almost certainly had the ability to keep the economy going by sustaining the system of payments even if the chain of bank collapses was allowed to run its course. In the 80s Latin American debt crisis, the Fed had an emergency plan to seize the money center banks, and keep them operating, if a default by a major Latin American country pushed them into insolvency.
By the time of the Lehman crisis the financial markets had been severely stressed for over a year. The first major bank collapse had occurred more than 6 months earlier. It would have required a degree of unbelievable incompetence and/or irresponsibility for the Fed not to have devised a similar emergency plan to keep the systems of payments operating in a worst case scenario.
Furthermore, even if the Fed had been as incompetent as many claim, it would not have taken long for it to improvise a system whereby certain payments would be prioritized and the system of payments would again be up and running. The notion that we would be sitting in a 21st century economy and reduced to barter payments was an invention of the bank lobby to get the taxpayers' money.
The first Great Depression was the result of a decade of failed policies, not a single bad mistake at its onset. There was absolutely nothing that we could have done back in September-October of 2008 that would have required that we experience a decade of double-digit unemployment. The specter of a "second great depression" is a fairy tale invented by the bank lobby to make the rest of feel good about having given them our money.
We are also supposed to feel good that the vast majority of the TARP money was repaid. This is another effort to prey on the public's ignorance. Had it not been for the bailout, most of the major center banks would have been wiped out. This would have destroyed the fortunes of their shareholders, many of their creditors, and their top executives. This would have been a massive redistribution to the rest of society -- their loss is our gain.
It is important to remember that the economy would be no less productive following the demise of these Wall Street giants. The only economic fact that would have been different is that the Wall Street crew would have lost claims to hundreds of billions of dollars of the economy's output each year and trillions of dollars of wealth. That money would instead be available for the rest of society. The fact that they have lost the claim to wealth from their stock and bond holdings makes all the rest of us richer once the economy is again operating near normal levels of output.
Instead, we have the same Wall Street crew calling the shots, doing business pretty much as they always did. The rest of us are sitting here dealing with wreckage of their recklessness: 9.6 percent unemployment and the loss of much of the middle class's savings in their homes and their retirement accounts. And the lackeys of the Wall Street crew are telling us that we should be thankful that we didn't have a second Great Depression. Maybe we don't have the power to keep the bankers from picking our pockets, but we don't have to believe their lies.
Crossposted with the Guardian.
Most of our recent presidents should be serving prison time for breaking international laws. You saw the handwriting on the wall when Obama selected Sumner and Geithner as his financial reps.
It's a charade, everything coming out of Washington. And those least aware of it are the lame-brained Tea Party crowd, who get their info from Faux and Valcano-Mouth Limbaugh.
UMMM????
The fear and pain absorbed by Americans after 9/11 was in-calculable. However, what Wallstreet did to America has caused damage to our countries soul on levels far surpassing 9/11. It is expected that the delta in suicides alone will be 10x-15x of that of 9/11. Then you factor in the depression, anxiety, stress and fear that Americans have endured for 3 years now. Oh, there are of course the quantities we measure like $10T of lost wealth, 10% unemployment, severe loss of US national stature, jobs moving oversees, significant rise in poverty... All while the Wallstreet aggressively hunt for the next bubble.
While it's an impossible dream it would be nice if our govern had the integrity to put Wallstreet and the US banking system in their place once and for all.
You asked why these people "continue to walk around". My reply would be they are permitted to do so by the highly complicit, duplitious, corrupt, greedy, and self-serving elected elite. This is not only financial warfare, it is also class warfare that contunues unabated as I sit here at my PC. The sooner we recognize that as a populace, the sooner we begin to resolve the daunting challenges confronting us.
Lyndon LaRouche must be given a forum, a position in the US government as his economic forecasts have always been correct. He has repeatedly warned that the only agenda now is reinstating Glass-Steagall in US banking and the implementation of the NAWAPA plan to avoid total collapse of the US economy.
The United States must stabilize itself, so that the world can be saved from economic catastrophe. Humanity is depending on the United States.
The US citizenry must organize for this immediate agenda, reinstating Glass-Steagall, and put the Fed into bankruptcy proceedings.
The US must commit itself to the redevelopment of the North American continent, to counterattack market forces, activate actual economic recovery and restore the national security.
I agree that Obama's policies have not helped... they are more a continuation with different packaging.
The fact that they have lost the claim to wealth from their stock and bond holdings makes all the rest of us richer once the economy is again operating near normal levels of output is a dismissal of the pain that would have been felt by the working class if a the bail out did not occurred. Those investments were not owned by Wall Street giants they were owned by middle class folks in the form of stocks and retirement accounts. Granted investments are in proportion to wealth. Unemployment estimates I have seen run as high as 50%. A return to operating normal levels would have taken much longer? One can Argue employment numbers and duration to recovery
I am middle class and worked for a salary for 35 years and created investments. I lost approx 40% of my investments plus 40% of my home value. Since, I have recouped 20%-25% of my investment. I definitely would have lost 100% of those investments and most likely would have lost 100% of my home. I would have had no way to re-coup those losses. There is a lot of miss-information out there on this debacle. You sir are definitely promoting one
See my answer to myself
I fault neither party in whole but everyone in part. The biggest problem is recovery has become a partisan issue.
George Bush and Hank Paulson requested the TARP money from congress they are were Republicans. Passage of TARP was bi-partisan 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 2 Independents (who plan to caucus with Democrats) in the U.S. Senate.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1424&tab=votes
Who has gotten financial bailout (TARP)
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/tarp-chart.htm
Maiden lane, maiden lane II, Maiden lane III
http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/maidenlane2.html
Maiden lane may turn a profit. As with any investment there is no guarantee
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129889416
you are being awfully mean to the rich. haven't you heard that they want the other 98% of us to stop calling them names. they are gods on earth making incredible things happen that enrich all of us like CDS's and CDO's, magic products that make this world a place worth living in. these items when grouped together become CSO's (combined sewer outflows) that the country can't live without. so stop calling them GREEDY CRIMINALS and CANNIBALS 'cause that hurts their feelings and we all know how sensitive these wonderful people really are.
signed,
lunchmeat.
cookedmeat
"Bernanke was probably caught in the biggest fabrication when he told Congress that the commercial paper market was shutting down.
If true, this would have been disastrous, since most major companies rely on selling commercial paper to meet their payroll and other routine expenses. "
If major businesses are in fact borrowing money to make payroll they are in sad shape. It seems that in such a situation they have already failed. Perhaps it would have been best to put them out of misery, theirs and ours.