If anyone wonders who is next for a handout

[Just Visiting]

These two paragraphs should spell it out for you.


"This time the banks are zeroing in on Geithner's cash giveaway bonanza, the "Public Private Investment Partnership" (PPIP). As expected, Bank of America and Citigroup have angled their way to the front of the herd, thrusting their snouts into the public trough and extracting whatever morsels they can find amid a din of gurgling and sucking sounds. Here's the story from the New York Post:

"As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner orchestrated a plan to help the nation's largest banks purge themselves of toxic mortgage assets, Citigroup and Bank of America have been aggressively scooping up those same securities in the secondary market, sources told The Post...

The writer is Mike Whitney, and he is absolutely 100% correct.

I should know. I was part of the cabal many years ago.

I don't really follow your website rules, for I long ago ceased believing in the "differences" between parties, but I do look in every now and then to see who gets it and who doesn't.

Please understand - Geithner is the wet dream of every financial pig in this country.

They know what is coming.

Do you??

[Bread and Circus]

1. Are you saying they are going to sell the toxic assets to themselves?

[Just Visiting]

8. They are buying on an open secondary market,

having (wink, wink) knowledge of what the gov. "buy-back" price will be. That is why it hardly matters what the initial buy price will be - the profit is built-in.

Everyone is smart enough not to be (literally) buying their own stuff, although chances are good that when the merry-go-round stops and everyone has cashed out everyone will be everyone else, if you catch that meaning.

[Oregone]

2. This is a problem I for see in the plan...any even if they do not,

(due to "oversight"), they can sell them to each other in manner they are swapping toxic assets and, on paper, practically buying their own stuff. Hence, they will be encouraged to overpay since they are guaranteed to profit off the good assets and the government is taking 85% of the loss on the bad assets. In essence, if this happens, the government is subsidizing banks to buy the same assets they already have! To be honest, the government might as well just calculate the cost of the bad assets and cut the banks a check to cover 85% of the amount. This plan may cost more than cutting a check though, based on the price they pay for their own (or their friends) assets--there is NO risk involved. Geithner's magic plan is so much infinitely worse than the Bush/Paulson plan, that is isn't even funny. The more we learn about it, the worse it becomes.

[glitch]

3. Do you have a link to the article? Thanks! nt

[inna]

4. link:

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03272009.html

[glitch]

7. Thanks! nt

[inna]

5. rec #10. my favorite quote from Whitney's article:

"Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people."

(in words of Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.)



wtf, Obama??

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

[Autumn]

6. How shocking

:sarcasm: I think you are right and I am glad to see you visiting. Recommended.