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The AIG Bailout Alone is Enough to Send You Back To Princeton
Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) conveys to Ben essentially our view, but does it with an absolutely blistering delivery. Ouch. Perhaps a few hundred years from now, as the first alien explorers sift through the post-twitter-facebook-internet apocalypse rubble and salvage a spare harddrive or two, there will actually be some evidence that at least one person might have prevented it all.
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Yeah, the trouble with Bunning though is that he takes that mean-spirited, blistering tone with everybody.
Well that should be the American way. If someone FUCKS up, he deserves to be grilled publicly.
It is clear to me that he spent no time preparing his statement to Bernanke. It was likely written by an aide and that was his first read through. I agree with his message but his delivery is horrible. He should have done better.
Bernanke response: "Let me correct just one point..." Exactly. Everything Bunning said was accurate. Bunning is not a lawyer or a camera whore; what's important is his words not a slick delivery.
The dood's from Kentucky, after all, they don't read real good there......
I'm agreeing with you. He needs some lessons from Mr. Paul.
I just think it is a severe paddling on the way out the door. The pubic wants answers - but I only see demagogues, not real leaders.
I want to see this guy teaming up with, and refering to, Mr. Paul who has been doing this for decades. Decades! No pats on the back for popularity contests. They let Dodd throw in some lines for ***** sake!
from an overseas observer, spot on!!
Sounded like he knew sweet f.a. about his idiot sheet and appeared to have lost it on numerous occasions.
Your politicians look like a good rabble .. barney boy is the best laugh but Bunny augers well for the "duh duh" award...
His tone is okie dokie with me. More people need to have his bullshit detector, and stop worrying about their own hides...Stop with the MILK TOAST and stand up for the corporate comunisim that is destroying America!!
Want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.
I'll take the blistering tone any day over a Goldman grinfuck.
yes the FED is the creature from jekyll island...
ha ha ha
yeah, i loved that reference, maybe a few people will read the book now. it is a bit over the top, but at least gets you thinking about the fed.
over the top? well i think not.
the FED was "passed" into "law" on a cold december 24 ,1913 night while most congressmen were gone out of washington.
so the sleeping american people didn't even know what had happened to them.
I'm afraid the reference is too cryptic - maybe he's a last minute convert - but when I carried that sucker around people were weirded out when I told them it was mostly about the history of banking.
let's hope pitching a no hitter means the same thing in the Senate
as the first alien explorers sift through the post-twitter-facebook-internet apocalypse rubble and salvage a spare harddrive or two
do you think that maybe they will read it on of them thar Kindle thangs?
That was funny. Not sure if it was him or not, but one of them told Heli Ben he was the real creature from Jekyll Island. Funny shit, if it wasn't so funny.
"Perhaps a few hundred years from now, as the first alien explorers sift through the post-twitter-facebook-internet apocalypse rubble and salvage a spare harddrive or two, there will actually be some evidence that at least one person might have prevented it all."
LMAO, I love this site.
Yeah Marla and all the TD's must be from Canada or some other country. Their humor is odd, dry and delightful.
Kick Central Banker Behind!!!!
Way to go Bunning. Kentucky proud.
After watching the video, I think the "KY" actually stands for KY Jelly ...
Sigh....finally somebody says something meaningful. Why the velvet gloves Dodd? He sounds like he wants to give Bernanke a prostate massage.
Where are those ninjas from Japan that were suppose to wipe out the elite?
two crates of throwing stars were held up in customs. be patient. you got to believe....:)
If Bernanke is not re-appointed, will it improve your opinion of the government? Scary thought.
Someone has to take the fall for the theft of the taxpayer by the socialization of losses and the privatization of the gains. Bernanke should be made an example of. It amazes me that the administration did not already take this opportunity to deflect the anger of the citizens to Bernanke and off of itself.
What's the administration got to do with anything?
The Bamster and the rest of the admenstruation are simply a front for the real MBTC.
Bernanke sits there for hours, knowing he's got another re-appointment, the Crystal is on ice, and he looks like a cat that swallowed the canary while the questioners look and sound like they are poorly auditioning for a part in a fictional play in high school and have no heart for it.
This is nothing but absurd theater of the worst kind.
The dollar is an inverse to truth.
Senator Bunning still has a nasty brushback pitch.
Agreed, but we need more than buzzing the tower, we need some of these guys to get plunked. Plunked as is out, out of office. Bernanke would be a good start.
Nothing would be better for Ben than to have enough time to work on testimony for the BAC/Ken Lewis/Hanky Paulson bailout day in court. We can only hope.
Poor Senator Bunning is totally out of touch with reality.
This poor man said he honestly believes that failure should be punished and not rewarded.
The Socialist Democrat party's official motto is: "REWARD FAILURE BY PENALIZING SUCCESS".
Sen. Bunning obviously needs to be sent to a re-education camp.
And the sooner the rest of you sheeple understand this, the sooner you can give up your silly dreams of success and become failures just like the party wants you to be. Totally dependent on them for every breath you take.
And what is republican party's motto? See my avatar for an answer.
You sure sound like your own avatar :)
Agreed on both points.
Why else would I choose a horse's ass for my avatar?
The Repubs steal our money to give to the rich and the Socialist Demcrats steal our money to give to the poor.
And those in the middle are rapidly disappearing.
Bernanke's a Republican, appointed by a Republican. The sooner you stop viewing this as some kind of partisan deal, the sooner you can give up your own silly dreams.
Hey douche! You do understand what a "socialist plutocracy" is, right?
You do understand that has long been the system of the USA, right?
You do realize that Wall Street is completely, and has been been for quite some time, underwritten by the taxpayer, right?
America has long been an anti-meritocratic culture -- otherwise George douchebag Bush would never have been accept at Yale...Harvard...the White House.
I believe George (I know him personally) entered the Presidency as a social conservative and left office as a conservative Socialist.
Horace, as with all his life experiences, he entered as a stooge and he left as a stooge.
To ascribe a philosophy to "George (I know him personally)" of any sort is nothing more than trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
Your understanding of our "two party system" is, to put it diplomatically, niave Horace but, it is what "The Powers That Be" want your conception of it to be. As long as you are a believer in either side of the false choice, your exactly where they want you to be. Sheeple Horace? I got a flash for you...
it's you boy.
Bunning's a moron. The Heritage Foundation wrote that speech.
Way too many multi-syllabic words for that moron. It's a shame becasue they were all true but that stupid fucker couldn't even read them off the piece of paper in front of him. Jesus, this country is doomed.
Bunning's a moron because Heritage Foundation wrote his speech? WTF?
What he said was true. Forget the delivery. Obama has great delivery, but what he says is not true.
Bernanke should've given Bunning the Spinal Tap answer:
"Well, that's just nitpicking, isn't it?"
"This printing press goes to 11."
lol
+1000!!!!
Bernanke has to call 911 cause the dollar is hurt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja-dg89wr-s&feature=related
faustian bargain
"This printing press goes to 11."
LMFAO !!!
Bunning's a moron. These remarks were written by the Heritage Foundation.
LAY
Its the message not the messenger. Marla you need to drill that more often :)
Actually, I think many of them were written by us.
+1
Senator Bunning's words were accurate and on target.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this
I think every major point the Senator made was covered by ZH staff and comment additions. Could it be the ZH community are the FED experts? the only people trying to connect all of the FED hidden dots?
Mark Beck
Anons 151331 and 337. Heritage Foundation? What's that supposed to mean? That this wasn't true? Lloyd, next time you log in, please use your real name, fucktard.
Big Ben will take any spanking they offer. Then he will be confirmed. It is a done deal. This is for public consumption. Placate the angry mob while they loot the treasury.
Afraid you're absolutely correct.
Ditto. Ben and Timmy will be kept in place to catch the many live grenades coming soon. Beltway critters will prefer to have two visible patsies in place before the midterms........ not two new dudes who can legitimately claim ignorance and innocence for all the carnage.
Read the " POLITICAL SURVIVORS HANDBOOK " for more details.
Bernankakke
AIG was NOT bankrupt? Holy shit!
It was a bailout of the rich! End of story!
Absolutely pathetic answer by Bernanke: "AIG wasn't bankrupt. We had no leverage. Many of the counterparties were foreign and I had no authority."
Absolutely pathetic.
Even Dodd can see that "If they bankrupted AIG they'd be bankrupt. You had leverage."
AIG wasn't bankrupt, they simply committed the large insurance fraud and swindle in human history, writing zillions of insurance policies (CDSes, etc.) with no reserves on hand to pay the freight.
I certainly would have preferred no bailout of AIG....but then JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs (and Morgan Stanley) would of blown up forevermore.
Can someone find a clip of DeMint cross examining Bernanke.
AIG was accepting premium payments, without setting aside any portion as reserves!
They were ill-equipped to actually pay out on ANY of their insurance contracts or swaps.
And yet here we are going to say "But they weren't TECHNICALLY bankrupt!"
Yeah, but without the gov't bailout, would they have been? Bernanke seems oblivious to this question. But but, we had already given AIG the $180 billion, so it wasn't technically bankrupt. And we couldn't just ask for the money back! No....
Much of the derivative market seems to have been a way for the big banks to sidestep capital requirements
i.e. gamble with money they didn't have.
And Bernanke doesn't want to regulate!
Hilarious...listen about 5:30 - 5:50
He says "Fraudian slip!!!"
Priceless
"Mr. Greenspan...Mr. Bernanke, that's a Fraudian slip, believe me..."
Appropriate and correct on so many levels!
Let's induct Bunning into Fight Club! :-)
WTF - was that the first time he had read that oratory? I agree 10000% with the message, but he should really tone down the vodka tonics at recess. (I happen to be having one now.) Great scalding, but WILD PITCH on the delivery.
now this is what I would call "an inconvinient truth"
complete and udder gayness!
Stopped the video after 2minutes to make popcorn and get a coke. This is good.
Bunning is ZHedger emeritus for sure.
One Senator with balls does not a majority make.
If does, however, make for good theater. I understand there are now signs the nomination might be held up for a while. Whatever. Just like a beaver's dam, while it may hold back the spring flood for a few weeks, it inevitably fails in the flood of melting ice and snow.
The banksters and other financial interests, foreign and domestic, have paid good money for this Congress. They expect, and will receive, their monies worth. However, I will buy some Orville Redenbacher popcorn (with extra butter) for the show.
You just watched the beginning of his end. Ben just struck out. He no longer incites fear in the opposing batters nor has any stuff left. They are moving today to drop him back to the minors. The walk to the mound has begun. Don't fear the reaper.
I also liked Jim Demint's questions that gave a fail rating to Bernanke using his own metrics he set during his last confirmation. Bunning and Demint are two senators that have common sense. Others, especially the fraud of a senator from the neighboring state of NH, Judd Gregg, showed which sector their next job will be located.
The only way to take the power out of the Fed is to introduce full reserve banking, easier than most people think.
Ferguson joins Tobin, Friedman, calls for full reserve banking. He forgot to mention that a central bank's functions would be greatly diminished under that model.
How to take moral hazard out of banking -FT
Limited purpose banking (LPB) is the only credible cure. It transforms all financial companies with limited liability, including insurance corporations, into pass-through mutual fund companies. Limited purpose banks would process securities and sell them to mutual funds. They would not be permitted to borrow to invest. Hence, they would never face a run and never fail. Risk-taking would be done by us, the people, via our purchase of more or less risky mutual funds.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34cd41e4-df77-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html
Oh man the last couple of minutes are just astounding!
The boldest of thieves on this planet would be put to shame watching that.
Props on the Av!
At least it felt good ......... until Summers is nominated for the post.
I am proud of Senator Bunning's effort to speak-out as he did. I wish more of our elected officials would do the same. Congressman Barney Frank, you should have been on top of these financial issues. The financial crisis was foreseeable to those who were awake and willing to perform their duties. Not only should Mr. Bernanke step down so should several elected officials should also step aside. Chairman Frank, you should be the first to go. Your opposition to the "audit the Fed" bill is simply inexplicable. You make grand speeches alluding to some superior wisdom and knowledge you allegedly possess but its all a load of bunk. You turned a blind eye to the problems that have been mounting and there is no reason we should place any faith in your present efforts in congress. I can only hope the voters in Massachusetts will remember your actions during these years and turn you out of office in the next election. You should realize that I am from your district and I will do my best to have you removed. And you should also know that I am a registered Democrat.
+100
I am also from Fraudulent Frank's district, am registered as Unenrolled (independent, can vote in either party's primary), and am completely disgusted that we are represented in Congress by this verifiable asshole. While Congress is overrun with weasels, and this guy is King Weasel of them all.
The Fall River bandit...
The world really is a golfball.
i <3 Bunning. a shame he's retiring. maybe Rand takes his spot?
"i don't abuse my supervisory power"
Anybody care to translate? Is it:
a. I'm Blankfein's bitch
b. There's no point pissing anyone important off when the taxpayer is already bent over.
c. Both A and B are correct.
Dodd's reply is "Well apparently not in this case."
after watching this I almost put my fist through the screen at Bernanke. Not only is he incompetent he is a DUMB F... abuse my powers this guys can not go back to Princeton either he will ruin some other lives there. Please send him to Germany and let them deal with him or better yet send him to Iran.....
Please some one put him in large beef freezer not to be open till the turn of the century. What a total loser who has picked our pockets for a few trillion dollars!!
One insane professor, he is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/bernanke-channels-willie_n_3789...
His speech was classic, but I disagree that the AIG bailout was the worst thing the Fed did during this crisis.
The worst thing is still ongoing - the continued purchase of Fannie/Freddie MBS.
Bernanke cries about independence, but then buys $1.25T of Fannie/Freddie MBS? Give me a break.
Why is he buying? He claims it is to keep mortgage rates down, but look at the evidence - he has done relative little buying of Ginnies. the Ginnie market would be just fine without the Fed.
But not Fannie/Freddie MBS. Why not? Because they don't have full faith and credit backing of the government.
By buying Fannie/Freddie MBS, Bernanke is enabling the Administration to avoid making a decision on Fannie/Freddie. And he goddamn well knows it. As does the Administration.
But then he cries about independence? give me a break.
Fannie & Freddie have continued to issue enormous quantities of new MBS while under government receivership for over a year. Do you really think there's any question about whether their MBS are effectively full faith and credit obligations or not?
Take a read of the bold print on the front page of a prospectus.
I've seen it, but but don't believe it. The government has been pumping as much money as necessary into Fannie & Freddie and I think allowing them to continue to originate new MBS while in receivership is as close as they can come to an explicit full faith and credit without saying it. Fannie, Freddie and FHA are currently over 90% of mortgage originations. If a Fannie or Freddie MBS ever pays off at less than par we can kiss the housing market goodbye because mortgage rates would go through the roof.
If they have full faith and credit why don't they say it?
You buy an MBS today, you are facing Fannie/Freddie for a good 10 years.
You want to bet that the next guy is going to bail them out?
What if the legal entities that are Fannie/Freddie today are put into runoff? Now you are holding onto paper that you better hope someone will step up for any shortfalls.
Fannie/Freddie's support today lasts as long as the government wants it to last. Some guarantee.
Sold to you, mate. I Sell you FMMA and FRE and you Pay me in ten year USTs. The spread is as flat as you don't question or find any effectivelies.
After watching that you'd have to be an absolute brain dead moron to send your kids to that school - $33,000.00 per year tuition so you can learn from Bernanke?
Agree, state university is much better, train your kids in real world, not in ivory tower.
Here's the clip of Bunning's statement. He almost called him Greenspan. heh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rka9VbPPMys
Didn't you get his easter egg?
That was a fraudian slip. LOL
Damn Bro, why dont you try reading through your speach once before you deliver it? Called him Mr. Greenspan too, and then said it was a Fraudian slip lol...what a tool..Cant we get someone who can at least read to deliver something this important?????
Bunning should of just kept it short like mad maxine does... just say the same thing over and over for 10 minutes his stutter speak makes him look like he doesnt even understand what he is reading he shouldnt read anything.. just keep staring him down and saying how he needs to go back to the woodshed
you can see Dodd is a sharp cat that can lay into someone when he wants to but it is just a game with him since he'll say one thing and do another...he's on the take just like Frank and the rest
Did you get punished for bad penmanship by the nuns?
Maybe he had bad breath too! You don't need to dress up in the woodshed. It's not a commencement address, it's the riot act.
Fed MBS purchases this week.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/mbs/
Two notes:
1. Volume of $16B net. Relative to recently lower issuance, this hardly constitutes a slowdown in activity (i.e. if they were still buying at a $25B clip, well, they wouldn't be, there ain't that much issuance).
2. Over $13B of Fannie/Freddie MBS, only $2.6B of Ginnie purchases, despire record FHA volume.
Bernanke is enabling the Administration to avoid making a decision on Fannie and Freddie's future, and cries that he wants independence?
His actions regarding GSE debt are anything but those of an independent central bank.
Dodd's soft because he supported Fannie and Freddie's growth. He's not in a position to come down harshly on Ben.
If you have relatives or friends in CT. support Peter Schiff..for Senate
Dodd's as soft as that mild mustard colored stuff in the baby's diaper.
I just want to wipe that Bush-like sneer off Benny's fucking face. With a baseball bat that little elitist fuck.
Why is Senator Bunning's name not on S.604 (Senate bill to audit the fed)? Is this grandstanding or is he for real?
Senator Bunning's Washington, D.C. office.
316 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202.224.4343
Fax: 202.228.1373
Perhaps we should remind him this exists.
by Anonymous
on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 16:14
#151396
please get that sack of SH%$ removed
Why?
I read it that way at first as well, he means Barney Frank.
Love his response too; the carnage suffered as a result of AIG failure would have been catastrophic....cyborg mutant space aliens would have finally had the upper hand and survival of the species would be doubtful. Help me Obiwan-Bernanke, you're my only hope. Why do I picture him in his underwear wielding a broom-saber on those bailout weekend evenings last year? Not only am I not afraid of what a C11 filing by AIG would have meant for me and my family, I'm less and less afraid of the eventual civil war alternative. I'll be looking for you on the field...
Fastball to the piehole.
I bet Dodd and Bernanke are chilling with a fat spliff right now...
Boy would I have loved to have seen Schiff in Dodd's seat today...If Schiff replaces Dodd does Schiff take Dodd's chair?
For some reason I don't think we'd be that lucky.
In the end it really does not matter, because he will be reconfirmed and will continue the same policies and the wall street,fed, Treasury troika will continue.
Very interesting exchange. Ben, face planted firmly in fist, looking bored and not at all concerned or even interested, as the fiery-eyed Bunning lays out clear as fucking day the absolute God's truth before his very beady little eyes.
In the ending exchange about AIG, the travesty that still sends my blood pressure to the moon, Ben clearly admits that all the banks were fucked, and that he had leverage. He says he "declined to abuse his position as a regulator." What the fuck does that mean? And then Dodd starts climbing all over him with his jesus-h-christ-ben-no-fucking-negotiations-I-mean-even I-a-true-fucking-idiot-would-have-at-least-tried-to-get-something-out-of-the-goddam-foreign-banks schtick. What BS - when did Dodd get religion?
This guy gets rehired. This is a ritual spanking. Nothing scares these banksters and their servants in government. Nothing.
Augh!
just a matter of time...
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Just one general remark.. I don't see the difference between evil bankers/policymakers extending uncollectable loans and stupid consumers running up their credit limits. The whole system went into this negative feedback loop, I don't think poor Ben or anyone else could help. I guess taxpayer just had to get the slap in the face to realize what's happening. Stop whining, take the slap
Ben is on some kind of PANIC mode. He is scared like a little girl.
Remember the great Douglas Adams. Don't panic!
only if the representative could read English properly, the delivery would have been TREMENDOUS.
"You have become the creature from Jekyll Island"
F***ING BEAUTIFUL MAN, JUST F***ING GORGEOUS...
G. Edward Griffin is popping Champagne as we speak
"You have become the creature from Jekyll Island"
F***ING BEAUTIFUL MAN, JUST F***ING GORGEOUS.
G. Edward Griffin is popping champagne as we speak
Dodd is an obscene human being. C'mon Conn. are you all stupid / ignorant? The rest of the country thinks so...take out the trash. Dammit!
$20berniebucks Bunning and Bernanke are having a good laugh over this performance right here on the youtube.
Beers on Bernie sponsored by the usual suspects.
Nothing will change.
How good are you in trend-spotting? Not so much? I thought so... Watch Bernie's body language, slouching posture, absent facial expression, shaking voice. Contrast that with Greenie's assertive BS spewing and imperial pomp - oh, the good old days... Bernie wants out - Bunning preaching, DeMint sharp-shooting notwithstanding. He realizes now that he was a patsy since day one. Same for Timmy-boy in a short time. Film at eleven.
You're right. The look on benny bernokio's face says it all.
Good points all. I applaud Bunning for showing up on Old Timer's Day the way I applaud Arnie when he shoots a 55 on the front nine at Augusta, but there comes a time to admit the sun has set. Bunning's speech was great but since he neither wrote it nor pre-read it, and because he barely understood what he was saying (other than to know that if he did understand it, this is what he would have wanted to say), the audience more or less laughed him off. ZH'ers may have loved it, but for those in the room it was comic relief. Then the ever-sycophantic Evan Bayh came in effusing praise and wiping away any lingering unsightly crumbs from Bernanke's beard after what Bunning attempted to do.
Since Bunning was going to go over his alloted time anyway, and since decorum seems to prevent anyone from stopping the old codger midstream, it might have been nice if he had stopped somewhere to ask even one question, such as "Isn't it illegal for the Fed to purchase Agency debt?" As it was, Bernanke got a chance to take a nap.
By the way, didn't Schumer quickly go off topic and try to take the faux populist route!
Helicopter Boy gets another 4-year lease on the Huey.
What Blanky and the Banksters wants, they gits
And you sir deserve what you git by laying down in the road, too cool by half.
Speaking of Fed evil (if you'll pardon a pleonasm), whatever happened to the Bloomberg FOIA suit? Down, down the MSM memory hole, to be joined by Climategate?
New D' Tey of an Emperor: a planetary economic system too big to succeed
We're not here to defend Ben Bernanke. He's not devious enough to have masterminded the mess that the US and the World are in. Humanity as a whole can take the credit for that. We have fractionally reserved the end game of what is known as the science of economics.
We now know all too well that fiat monetary roads leads to hyperinflation debased bubble like productive output depressions. Debase the currency enough and print thin air backed monetary units and you too can grow the "numbers" of your economy so that the Wall Streeters can get their endless growth in order for P/E ratios not to collapse due to stagnant and declines in real economic output.
Print enough money and hand it to the banks and allow every bank to have a crude orgy around a bonfire circle of free money pumped in to buy asset classes known as investments in order to revive the nude emperor's rotting corpse.
Yesterday's Princes of Wall Street have become the hand gun toting "Print C's" of the front running darkness descent into an abyss of abysmal catastrophic collapse.
Without the wizardry of Wall Street and their fellow Gnomes of Eurasia allies and their ability to create every which way to hide inflation by stashing the(created out of thin air/ computer zero wads of cash) surplus of monetary units into every which investment under the sun, this print! print! print! game would have ended long ago on grounds of sheer absurdity alone.
It is at once sad and amusingly hilarious to watch Ben Bernanke get grilled like he is actually a maestro when he is in fact just the most prominent public face of the visible tentacles of the creature from Jekyll island.
....
fUny1.blogspot.com