Banks - Breaking up is hard to do:

Via the LA Times:

Britain is forcing breakups of bailed-out major banks

The British government -- spurred on by European regulators -- is forcing Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock to sell off parts of their operations. The Europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be rescued by taxpayers, no matter how they conducted their business, in order to avoid damaging the global financial system.

The move to downsize some of Britain's largest banks comes as U.S. politicians are debating whether American banks should also be required to shrink. The Obama administration has maintained that large banks should be preserved because they play an important role in the economy and that taxpayers instead should be protected by creating a new system for liquidating large banks that run into problems. But Britain's decision already is being cited by a growing chorus of experts, including prominent bankers and economists, who want the United States to pursue a similar approach.

"We still need to see exactly which parts the [British] banks will need to sell off to judge whether the goal of having smaller banks is really achieved," said Richard Portes, an economics professor at the London Business School. "But there are lessons here for the United States. The supposed economies of scale of massive financial institutions are outweighed by the difficulties in controlling risk inside them."

Hopefully the US will follow suit but I don't expect that since the big banks that failed here still managed to hold on to their biggest asset: The US government.

Who are they kidding here?

From the NY Times - 7th paragraph of the article:

The bill also would increase the borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to $100 billion from $30 billion, a move that will save banks billions of dollars by reducing the extra premiums that they would have had to pay to shore up the deposit insurance fund.

Title of the article:

Senate Approves Measure to Reduce Home Foreclosures

And the relief for home foreclosures?

The new Senate bill does not include additional money to aid mortgage borrowers, but it does draw $2.3 billion from the Treasury’s $700 billion financial bailout fund for various provisions.

This is a joke:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said at a news conference after the vote. “The bill does other things, but certainly, a major target is to deal with peoples’ housing issues and try to stem the tide.”

Another $70,000,000,000.00 giveaway to the banks and measly 2.3 Billion dollars taken from the already pissed away 700 billion is about helping homeowners? And no cramdown either.

Note to the NY Times and Sen. Chris Dodd:
A fine fuck you to you two, too!

CODEPINK Crash Economy Club Party

Good for them!

VIDEO: Protesters crash Summers talk
Two protesters from the activist group Code Pink jumped on stage during a speech by White House National Economic Council Director Larry Summers Thursday, calling Summers a “toxic mess” and demanding his resignation.

The disruption marked the second time in a week the group has interrupted a financial gathering. On Tuesday April 7, protesters from the group interrupted a speech by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Their politically correct message?

“We want our $$$$ Back!”

Darn frigin' right.

Everything you need to know about the bailouts...

in 2 short paragraphs. A relatively long post for Atrios. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What's The Goal?

Others have made this point in various ways, but if the goal is to bail out the banksters and keep the existing too big to fail financial order in place with the same cast of characters in charge, then all of this sounds like a cunning plan.

If the goal was really to get banks lending again they'd be funneling large sums of money to healthy (mostly smaller) financial institutions who actually made sensible choices over the last few years.

Meanwhile a fire sale is going on:

Lenders have become so overwhelmed by the foreclosure crisis that they are starting to unload properties in bulk to investor groups at steep discounts.

Investors then flip the properties for a profit without necessarily improving the home.

For example, a unit of Citigroup, the troubled financial giant, sold a foreclosure in Temecula to an Arizona investment firm for $139,000 when comparable homes in the area were selling for $240,000 to $260,000.

The firm listed the home for $249,000, received multiple offers and the property has entered escrow, said Amber Schlieder, the real estate agent who handled the listing.

Citigroup left a 100 grand on the table. This looks like a great way to abuse the taxpayer even more.

I want to know who they are all selling in bulk to.

Remember who else was buying up the mortgages in bulk?

So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide's former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.

"It has been very successful - very strong," John Lawrence, the company's head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac's spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.

The Treasury has shown a willingness to recklessly toss all of our futures away to keep these "Too Big Failures" operating in their self-entitled comfort zone.

What incentive do the banks have to sell these properties for as much as they can when they can sell them in bulk at a loss to their buddies' companies (or even their own companies) so they can turn a profit on them and doing this knowing the failure bankers can ship off all of the bills for the losses to us? Think about it.

If Geithner were handing these trillions to the smaller more responsible bankers some of us little people would be able to buy these cheap houses...

But this way the elite get to keep all of the assets in their greedy hands and have us pay for their gambling addiction failures too. And then they will turn a profit on selling us these properties AGAIN.

“While some critics are distressed that Mr. Kurland and his team are back in business, the executives say that PennyMac’s operations serve as a model for how the government, working with banks, can help stabilize the housing market and lead the nation out of the recession. “It is very important to the entire team here to be part of a solution,” Mr. Kurland said

Important for Whom? You, maybe, but not me.

I am thinking predatory lenders should already be in jail and that this is a model for more financial disaster for taxpayers. I smell smoke and all I see is a fire and a bunch of greedy arsonists standing around with their gasoline soaked hands in our pockets...

And, so far, the elite are achieving their goal of bailing out themselves with our money.

From buhdydharma at dKos, some extra food for thought:

Hard Not To Call It Evil

According to people who should know, The Ruling Class is using our money....draining our money, the money we use to survive and feed our children and to actual produce things, to rescue the very structure...that allows them to BE The Ruling Class. The structures that enable them to Rule us by controlling credit, capital, and our pensions and IRA's and 401k's.

And our regulatory agencies and politicians. And so by extension our military. Which is then used in the service and interests of The Ruling Class and their Party of Business, the GOP.

These people, the Ruling Class, are the ones who got us into this financial armageddon. These are the same Ruling Class that took us to war in Iraq, after ignoring the warnings that an attack was coming.

They are the same people who made America into a nation that tortures people they KNOW to be innocent. They are the same people...if they even deserve the name...who are stopping any serious efforts to mitigate a Climate Crisis of incomprehensible scope.

They are the same people that so unprecedentedly had the Supreme Court decide Bush vs. Gore, so they could have Bush cut their taxes and deregulate the very same structures that we are now being called to give OUR money to prop up. Yes, the very same people who are directly responsible for everything that has gone wrong in our world, are the people who are now telling us....not asking us....telling us, that we have to bail them out. While as always, not telling us the whole story, not telling us what they are doing behind the scenes and behind our backs.

Read on...

[update] Via Newsweek, Follow the Bailout Cash:

In recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee for Bank of America (which got $15 billion in bailout money) sent out $24,500 in the first two months of 2009, including $1,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and another $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels. Citigroup ($25 billion) dished out $29,620, including $2,500 to House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, who also got $10,000 from UBS which, while not a TARP recipient, got $5 billion in bailout funds as an AIG "counterparty." "This certainly appears to be a case of TARP funds being recycled into campaign contributions," says Brett Kappell, a D.C. lawyer who tracks donations.

[update deux] Via Tengrain, a picture is worth trillions of dollars:

The Bailout Tracker

Hat tip to Scissorhead LiberalDemDave, he discovered a handy way to find out how much the freakin’ bloodsuckers are getting out of us.

What’s really interesting is that this program also tells you the company’s market value and the percentage of the funds it received in proportion to the market value.

So, for instance, the market value of AIG is $942 million, and the bailout that they have received is 4246% of their market value. And if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know…

The Big Congressional Lie

If the United Auto Workers (UAW) union contracts can be on the table... So can the Financially United Corporate Kleptocracy of the United States (FUCK-US) nonunion contracts:

A friend called last night, and asked me why Congress didn't include anything in the bailout legislation to ensure that any company receiving a bailout didn't pay out bonuses? If the courts would have required the contracts to go through, then amend whatever law the courts are relying on to make that ruling, specifically as it applies to companies that accept bailout monies and the enforcement of bonuses. In essence, pass "cram down" legislation that applies to bonuses at companies like AIG.

These failed bankers need to be hammered. Not pampered by their elected kissing cousins. They were the ones that caused all of this in the first place. I think we need to put Congress' contracts back on the table, as well, so we can clawback their health care and heaping shitpile of their money. And then we could put an idiocracy tax on all of their incomes.

Layers of Irony

As the financially crippled NY Times writes about the financially disastrous Citi's reckless new campaign:

Citigroup — the mega-bank that managed its own finances so badly that it has required three taxpayer bailouts totaling at least $45 billion so far — is preaching fiscal responsibility to young people

Now, I am quite willing to cut the NY Times a lot of slack here because they aren't doing this on my dime. Others don't appear to be so forgiving on that and hilarity ensued in the comment threads there.

But Citi trying to sell My Space credit cards to kids with interest rates that can go as high as 29.99% as some kind of responsible thing to do is the height of irony.

And I am so sure "Generation Forward" is looking forward to the nationalized Citi bank.

[update] Some FDIC irony:

At a time when the FDIC is seeking a $500 BILLION dollar loan - only $470 Billion than their normal line of credit and for reasons unknown as of yet - and with trillions of dollars being poured into welfare bonuses for bankers we get this announcement from the FDIC:

Nuts and Bolts: Tools for Today’s Economy

National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) highlights consumer education efforts across the nation. NCPW 2009 can help people get the most for their money, whether they are trying to stretch their paychecks, improve their credit history, or tell the difference between a real deal and a potentially fraudulent product or service. For more information about this program visit: http://www.consumer.gov/ncpw/index.html.

The FDIC is a major sponsor of NCPW (...snip...)

(emphasis mine) It would be funnier if it were coming from the Treasury Dept. or the FED, but still pretty funny as is.

2008 Bankruptcies Skyrocketed in Connecticut

According to The New London Day, 2008 bankruptcies across the rest of the nation too:

Filings for one of the most common forms of personal bankruptcy have increased by more than 60 percent in 2008 in Connecticut, according to a report released Monday by The Warren Group.

According to the report, Chapter 7 filings of the U.S. bankruptcy code increased 66 percent last year, from 3,417 in 2007 to 5,676 in 2008 and more than doubled since 2006. Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the most common option for individuals seeking relief from debt, wipes away most debt after non-exempt assets are used to pay off creditors.
When combined with Chapter 13 filings, which permit repayment of debt, filings are up 51 percent in the state since last year.

Oh yeah... Chapter 7 bankruptcies are down compared to 2005 levels courtesy of what was little more than the "indentured servitude act - 2005" making it near impossible to get out from underneath debt. You can thank the entire bank loving Congress for that. There are way too many Democratic members in the House and Senate that deserve special attention on this to bother list, never mind the ever-screwing-us-over Republicans.

Tell me something, all you Senators and Representatives, are you proud of this and do you think about this as you hand over TRILLIONS of our tax dollars to these corrupt and incompetent robber baron banks? And how do you live with yourselves knowing that we know you are robbing us?

Politicians and bankers... Criminals with a fancy title.

I may be furious at Dodd

for his position on health care, and Countrywide, and the credit card indentured servant act, etc., BUT it appears he may have done something right here.

Credit where credit is due, Senator Dodd, and all of that.

As for a brain drain at these insolvent banks? If those idiots in the "top leadership" leave... Then they are even dumber than the complete and utter failure of the banks they lead into destruction proved they were.

IOW: Please, Mr. and Mrs. Corporate Welfare Banker, leave and don't let the doors on the bank vaults you looted hit you on the ass on yer way out!

A: The "best little whorehouse on Wall Street"

Q: Where did some of these incompetent and corrupt bankers spend their time and the banks' money last year?

• an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
• an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "loves Brooke" and spent $41,600
• an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who "only wanted all-American girls" and spent $27,000
• a managing director from Merrill Lynch who saw "Lana" using the name "Nataly"
• a managing director from Deutsche Bank "who called about seeing Nataly again"

Oh yeah... I guess these "corporate expenses" are very likely getting covered by "US" now.

"Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards," she said. "I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants," Davis said.

C'mon an' say it with me: "FRAUD"

Of course, Kristen Davis was prosecuted, jailed and fined for her part... As for the nearly 10,000 high powered clients committing fraud to cover up their misdemeanor crimes, making these crimes a felony? Typically, the men remain untouched by these scandals.

How do you feel about bailing these people out?

Note to ABC news: We want names! All 10,000 of them.

Class War coming to neighborhood near you?

How the heck can we fight for a better America in this very real class war when the evil and criminal CEO masterminds of America's failure turn tail and run like the weak-kneed American breed of foolish elitists that they are?

Don't they understand that there are going to be less and less places on this earth where they can hide? And if they find somewhere new to hide? We will take it to them there.

We are not amused by their actions.

The 1 percenters of the world, and their hired yes men, are so far removed from reality and will never get it until they are kicked around for real. They cause all of the problems and reap windfall profits from it. And playing on the other side of the street on TV for a week will never teach them what it is like to look at a child as a poor parent, a child wanting and needing just the basics in life. And knowing that child will not get that, the most basics, which, just as every other human being, they have a right to.

Food.

There is a hidden epidemic in the United States. All over this country it is striking Americans of every age group and ethnicity, whether they live in cities or rural areas. And so, despite the diversity of targets, those suffering in this silent epidemic have two things in common: they are poor or low-income, and they are increasingly going without enough food. Although politicians talk about “poverty in America,” decision-makers avoid specifically mentioning the growing, and often deadly problem of hunger. George McGovern said in 1972, “To admit the existence of hunger in America is to confess that we have failed in meeting the most sensitive and painful of human needs. To admit the existence of widespread hunger is to cast doubt on the efficacy of our whole system.” Three decades later, evidence indicates that the existing system is failing a vast number of Americans. This Fact Sheet documents the epidemic.

A home.

Although single men constitute about sixty percent of the homeless population, families constitute about one third of all homeless and are the fastest-growing group of homeless. The homeless elderly will also be an important group as America ages in the next decades (Rosenheck, Bassuk, and Salomon*; Burt, Aron, and Lee*). Although about seventy percent of the homeless live in central cities, rural homelessness is a hidden problem. The rural homeless are more likely to be families that are homeless for shorter periods of time, often as a result of domestic violence (Singleton et al.*). One of the hardest groups to reach, however, is the one fourth of homeless who have been homeless for at least five years (Burt*).

Some basic medical help when they are sick.

Dodd and Larson Get an Earful on Healthcare

Via Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant, 675 angry and frustrated people showed up to this healthcare forum at Goodwin College:

On the first day of a listening tour on health care, an issue pivotal to the new Congress and his own re-election, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd got an earful Friday.

The first comment came from a furious homeless shelter manager: He and his clients have no coverage, yet insurance giant American International Group got an $85 billion federal loan.

Over 90 minutes, the Democratic senator heard from a string of constituents, who waved their hands, hoping for a chance to describe a struggle to hang onto middle-class lives after losing jobs and affordable health care. A few were angry, others just scared.

On the way out, Dodd embraced one woman who burst into tears as she described losing health coverage for her disabled 2-year-old. Dodd held her until she stopped sobbing.

Dodd says that Tom Daschle, Obama's pick to guide healthcare reform, will be coming to Connecticut to discuss the issue. I say that they better be prepared to get another earful because the incremental changes being proposed will not answer the massive problems we are facing.

Problems like this:

"[the forum] included the president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a reassuring signal to Connecticut's insurance industry."

Yep! Dodd and Larson think that these people are supposed to be our allies on this issue.

MA regulators: Did Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Partners HealthCare collude to fix prices and raise rates 75%?

Partners, insurer under scrutiny

Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation into whether the state's largest health insurance company and its largest healthcare provider may have illegally colluded to increase the price of health insurance statewide over the last nine years, according to several legal and government sources.

The attorney general sent formal demands for information to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Partners HealthCare late last week, the sources say, calling for a detailed account of their contract negotiations in recent years.

Since 2000, Blue Cross has boosted the rate it pays for medical care by Partners doctors and hospitals by 75 percent, dramatically more than the increases given to most other Massachusetts hospitals. Blue Cross now pays $2 billion a year to Partners, parent company of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals.

Why do we put up with this?

I don't want these insurance industries' input into my healthcare in any way, shape or form. This is the kind of health care the insurance giants have provided us thus far:



H/t nyceve for the video, where I encourage you to go read the entire piece and watch all the videos:

We all know that during the Bush regime, American citizens never saw the coffins of our fallen heroes coming back from Iraq.

Americans are also shielded from the brutal ugliness of our collapsed healthcare system. The traditional media is ill-informed (what else is new?), and rarely, if ever, give us frank and candid reporting about the grotesque realities of the U.S. healthcare catastrophe. So the BBC picks up the slack.

One last quote from Dodd:

"I hear people talking about a single-payer plan and the like," Dodd said. "That isn't going to happen. It's going to be a combination of public, private."

Why might Dodd hold the view of "hearing" what we are saying but not listening?

Jackie M. Clegg Dodd serves on the board of health care, pharmaceutical, and financial services companies.

Here's a list:

Director , Brookdale Senior Living Incorporated
Brentwood , TN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Long-Term Care Facilities

Director , Cardiome Pharma Corporation
Vancouver, B.C. , CN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Drug Manufacturers

Director , CME Group, Incorporated
Chicago , IL
Sector: FINANCIAL / Diversified Investments

Director , Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated
Cambridge , MA
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Drug Manufacturers

Through these directorships she's earned more than $1 million for the Dodd family.

You want to stay in Congress with these kinds of answers, Senator Dodd?

"That isn't going to happen."

Not only will all of you hear us, but you will start to listen...

Are you starting to get the picture concerning exactly what we are up against? And it goes beyond just the little people that are really losing this war.

As the one percent of the planet that holds the preponderance of wealth and the other 99% of the planet wake up to the fact that we ARE in a Class War, things are about to get interesting. Especially IF the 99% wake up to the fact that the 1% is killing the planet we all share ...unnecessarily... just so that they can make even more money.

As if money will save them.

Are the Big Banks Completely Bankrupt?

Bob at Politics in the Zeros seems to think there is good reason to believe this is the case...

Jim Rogers is a legendary investor and partner of George Soros. He is known for being blunt, and, I’ve found from watching what he says, usually quite correct. He is now saying most major US banks are bankrupt.

And it it just gets worse from there in a back assward game of "theftocracy"...