leftchick
02-14-2008, 08:07 AM
don't know how I missed this, what with our great media and all.
http://www.marketoracle.eu/Article3681.html
Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleLow interest credit and “financial innovation” are a deadly-combo. They've knocked the banking system for a loop, clogged the credit markets with billions of dollars of subprime sludge, and left the real estate market sprawling on the canvas. Still---even though $2 trillion of capitalization has been wiped-out from falling home prices; and even though the financial system is in a terminal state of paralysis---no one has been held accountable. In fact, not one trader, mortgage lender, rating's-agency official, fund manager, or investment banker has been indicted or charged with criminal wrongdoing.
NOT ONE - The system operates without rules or guard rails. It's the Wild West!
The system is so thoroughly marinated in corruption, that every trace of regulatory-oversight has been removed. The SEC is little more than a public relations sham loaded with business-friendly sycophants who try to sustain the publics confidence while kow-towing to their corporate paymasters. It's a complete hoax. Last week, the Chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox, gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building. He said: "We've already launched an initiative in this area to investigate possible fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty involving collateralized debt obligations. Among the issues confronting us this year will be determining whether bank holding companies and securities firms made proper disclosure in their filings and public statements of what they knew about their CDO portfolios and their valuations. We'll determine whether brokers carefully followed suitability requirements when they sold complex debt-related derivatives that shortly afterward went bad. And in this area, as elsewhere, we'll be investigating whether unscrupulous insiders used non-public information to bail out of these securities or to sell them short, in violation of the securities laws.”
Huh? So, after 6 years of sitting on the sidelines watching the fat-cat investment banks and hedge funds sell dodgy securities, (comprised of mortgages from unemployed thrift-store workers with bad credit) Cox has finally decided to “to investigate possible fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty.”
What a joke. Trillions of dollars have been lost, the financial system is reeling, and the nation is headed into recession. We want scalps---not excuses!
Did Cox know that the CDOs, the MBSs, the ABCP and the rest of the alphabet soup of “structured investments” were unalloyed garbage?
Yes, of course, he did. Everyone knew. But they were making so much money selling snake oil to credulous investors they couldn't help themselves. They went ape. Two week's ago TV investment guru, Jim Cramer, even admitted that he and his business buddies used to call the investors who bought these sketchy “debt pools” “morons” and Bozos”. That says it all, doesn't it?
Does Cox expect us to believe that he and his Keystone Cops at the SEC didn't know what was going on?
Bullshoes!
Here's a video clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart with CNN's personal finance editor, Gerri Willis. Willis explains in simple terms how the subprime fiasco evolved. She acknowledges that the loans were made to “people who really couldn't afford to pay them off” and that when “Wall Street saw how successful they were, they decided to sell them as investments all around the world”. Good thinking, eh? She even admits that the sellers knew that the investments were rotten but duped their customers by saying “Trust us” . Unfortunately, the naive investors found out later that “they were sold swampland in Texas”.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=148477&title=gerri-willis
Click to Watch the whole video
This is a great summary of a how millions of investors were ripped off in broad daylight by crafty junk-bond salesmen while the SEC looked the other way. It may turn out to be the biggest heist of the century. Trillions of dollars were raked in on complex investments that (apparently) everyone in the industry knew were worthless. This is fraud on an industrial-scale.
And that's just the beginning. The same gaggle of investment sharpies who cooked up the subprime swindle are putting the final touches on a plan to off-load hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed slop onto the American taxpayer. If they succeed, the country's biggest GSE's---Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac---will be crushed by the expanded debt-load and probably go belly-up within the year.
http://www.marketoracle.eu/Article3681.html
Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleLow interest credit and “financial innovation” are a deadly-combo. They've knocked the banking system for a loop, clogged the credit markets with billions of dollars of subprime sludge, and left the real estate market sprawling on the canvas. Still---even though $2 trillion of capitalization has been wiped-out from falling home prices; and even though the financial system is in a terminal state of paralysis---no one has been held accountable. In fact, not one trader, mortgage lender, rating's-agency official, fund manager, or investment banker has been indicted or charged with criminal wrongdoing.
NOT ONE - The system operates without rules or guard rails. It's the Wild West!
The system is so thoroughly marinated in corruption, that every trace of regulatory-oversight has been removed. The SEC is little more than a public relations sham loaded with business-friendly sycophants who try to sustain the publics confidence while kow-towing to their corporate paymasters. It's a complete hoax. Last week, the Chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox, gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building. He said: "We've already launched an initiative in this area to investigate possible fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty involving collateralized debt obligations. Among the issues confronting us this year will be determining whether bank holding companies and securities firms made proper disclosure in their filings and public statements of what they knew about their CDO portfolios and their valuations. We'll determine whether brokers carefully followed suitability requirements when they sold complex debt-related derivatives that shortly afterward went bad. And in this area, as elsewhere, we'll be investigating whether unscrupulous insiders used non-public information to bail out of these securities or to sell them short, in violation of the securities laws.”
Huh? So, after 6 years of sitting on the sidelines watching the fat-cat investment banks and hedge funds sell dodgy securities, (comprised of mortgages from unemployed thrift-store workers with bad credit) Cox has finally decided to “to investigate possible fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty.”
What a joke. Trillions of dollars have been lost, the financial system is reeling, and the nation is headed into recession. We want scalps---not excuses!
Did Cox know that the CDOs, the MBSs, the ABCP and the rest of the alphabet soup of “structured investments” were unalloyed garbage?
Yes, of course, he did. Everyone knew. But they were making so much money selling snake oil to credulous investors they couldn't help themselves. They went ape. Two week's ago TV investment guru, Jim Cramer, even admitted that he and his business buddies used to call the investors who bought these sketchy “debt pools” “morons” and Bozos”. That says it all, doesn't it?
Does Cox expect us to believe that he and his Keystone Cops at the SEC didn't know what was going on?
Bullshoes!
Here's a video clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart with CNN's personal finance editor, Gerri Willis. Willis explains in simple terms how the subprime fiasco evolved. She acknowledges that the loans were made to “people who really couldn't afford to pay them off” and that when “Wall Street saw how successful they were, they decided to sell them as investments all around the world”. Good thinking, eh? She even admits that the sellers knew that the investments were rotten but duped their customers by saying “Trust us” . Unfortunately, the naive investors found out later that “they were sold swampland in Texas”.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=148477&title=gerri-willis
Click to Watch the whole video
This is a great summary of a how millions of investors were ripped off in broad daylight by crafty junk-bond salesmen while the SEC looked the other way. It may turn out to be the biggest heist of the century. Trillions of dollars were raked in on complex investments that (apparently) everyone in the industry knew were worthless. This is fraud on an industrial-scale.
And that's just the beginning. The same gaggle of investment sharpies who cooked up the subprime swindle are putting the final touches on a plan to off-load hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed slop onto the American taxpayer. If they succeed, the country's biggest GSE's---Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac---will be crushed by the expanded debt-load and probably go belly-up within the year.