How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1


It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company's CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: "The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now," he said. "When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too." In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being "consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet's investment

Liddy made AIG sound like an orphan begging in a soup line, hungry and sick from being left out in someone else's financial weather. He conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its "pneumonia" was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn't have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

[babylonsister]

1. And does anyone have a cure, or are we reallly doomed? nt

[seemslikeadream]

2. If the real terrorists are not gone after, tried and convicted

yes we are doomed, and maybe that will be too little too late


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4121684


CEOs: (From left) Robert Willumstad (July 2008-September 2008), Martin Sullivan (2005-2008), Maurice (Hank) Greenberg (1968-2005)

Company: American International Group (AIG). world's largest insurance firm

On their watch: In Willumstad's brief tenure, AIG stock plunged from around $27 a share
to $2 a share, and the ailing firm agreed to an $85 billion government bailout. Sullivan left
after two quarters of record losses and $20 billion in sub prime-mortgage-related losses.
Greenberg was credited with shaping AIG into the world's largest insurer but was forced
out in 2005 due to a fraud investigation. No charges were filed against him.

Payout: $7 million for Willumstad's three months of work, $47 million for Sullivan and for Greenberg, despite the investigation, a 12 percent stake in AIG. That stake, however, isn't worth what it was once was. After the government bailout, Greenberg's $3billion interest nearly disappeared, and he dropped off the Forbes list of the richest people in the world





CEO: Ken Thompson

Company: Wachovia

On his watch: Shareholders called for his ouster at their annual meeting in April 2008 following a first-quarter loss and a dividend cut of 41 percent. Thompson had earlier promised the dividend would not be cut. He also came under fire for his $25 billion purchase of home lender Golden West, a deal he made at the height of the housing boom. He is shown here (at left) arriving at the April meeting. He resigned the next month.

Payout: $8.7 million





CEO: Michael Perry

Company: IndyMac Bank

On his watch: The bank collapsed in July 2008, in what regulators called the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. Despite mouting losses from delinquent loans in 2007, Perry insisted in December that the bank would be profitable by the second half of 2008. A protege of former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, Perry was 45 when he was removed from his 15-year tenure as CEO during the FDIC's takeover.

Payout: Unknown. Forbes, however, listed Perry's five-year compensation total from IndyMac as $37.49 million.





CEOS Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron

Company: Fannie Mae (Mudd) and Freddie Mac (Syron)

On there watch: Earlier this year, Mudd predicted Fannie would "feast" on the reduced competition in the mortgage insurer suffered four consecutive quarters in the red amid the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. Likewise, Syron reportedly rejected internal warnings that could have protected Freddie from the crises that ultimately brought it down. Fannie shareholders lost $52 billion as the stock plummeted 83 percent,while Freddie shareholders watched $36 billion go down the drain as its share price slumped 85 percent and its value sank to negative $5.6 billion. By the time the U.S. government extended a $2.25 billion credit line to each in July, Fannie's debts had reached $800 billion and Freddie's had reached $740 billion.

Payout: Zero. Regulators axed contract provisions that would have awarded both men hefty exit packages. Mudd was set to receive $9.3 million in exit pay, on top of his $12.4 million in salary, bonuses and stock profits. Syron's exit package could have amounted to at least $14.1 million. He has made $17.1 million in salary, bonuses and stock profits since becoming CEO in 2003.





CEO: Richard Fuld

Company: Lehman Brothers

On his watch: The firm declared bankruptcy on Sept. 15. In April he proclaimed to shareholders that "the worst is behind us," but for months he had dodged queries about the firm's exposure to toxic subprime debt.

Payout $22 million




CEO: Angelo Mozilo

Company: Country Financial

On his watch: The founder of the ill-fated mortgage giant, Angelo Mozilo, 69, was at the helm during the subprime fiasco that led to the broader credit crisis, Mozilo swore Countrywide would ride out the turmoil and emerge bigger than ever. Instead, he cashed out his stock options as Countrywide headed into a nosedive this year. To date, the company's worth has shrunk from about $25 billion to $2.5 billion.

Payout: $121.5 million. Mozilo gave up $36.4 million in severance pay, but is under SEC investigation for his $121.5 million stock gains.







CEO: Stanley O'Neal

Company: Merrill Lynch

On his watch: Shortly before his ouster last October, Merrill reported $7.9 billion in write-downs related to O'Neal's blundering forays into risky subprime-mortgage territory. O'Neal had snatched up subprime lender First Financial in late 2006, a move Portfolio magazine had likened to having "all the strategic wisdom of a foray into Havana real estate in 1959." Merrill's write-downs have since climbed to $45 billion.

Payout: $161.5 million







CEO: Charles Prince

Company: Citigroup

On his watch: Before he stepped down in November 2007, Citigroup, the world's largest bank, reported a 57 percent drop in quarterly earnings and lost nearly a quarter of its market value. "It is my judgment that -given the size of the recent losses in our mortgage-backed securities business, the only honorable course for me to take as chief executive officer is to step down, "he said.

Payout: $68 million





CEO: Jimmy Cayne

Company: Bear Stearns

On his watch: After serving as CEO for 15 years, Jimmy Cayne was conspicuously absent in the firm's final months. When Bear first disclosed mortgage losses last year, Cayne was at a Nashville bridge tournament. Eight months later, as Bear's non-executive chairman and as the company began its final descent, Cayne was at the North American Bridge Championships, where he could not be reached. Bear was sold days later to JPMorgan Chase at the bargain-basement price of about $10 a share, down from about $170 a share in 2007. Cayne had been worth about $1 billion in 2007, before Bear's demise shaved his savings down to about $600 million.

Payout: $61.3 million. Cayne and his wife dumped their Bear stock during the JPMorgan takeover. He will also receive another $4.6 million in JPMorgan stock.

[babylonsister]

3. You do know I love and appreciate you, slad, I hope. Kick ass

thread! :yourock:

[xiamiam]

5. thanks...much better to see the faces and names of the crooks..more of this..everyday

they are not the masters of the universe..they just think they are as they hide behind their corporations...

[Double T]

4. Yep. That about sums it up in a nutshell; the so called 'best and brightest' certainly aren't.......

the best ans assuredly nowhere near the brightest. The criminals on wall street and residing in the capitol are totally engaged and in charge of the corruption and that means we're all going down. I see few options; the corruption is ingrained in our system of government and business. A revolution appears to be one of several possibilities for straightening out this unbelievably believable mess.