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Federal Reserve Loses Bloomberg FOIA Lawsuit, Sensitive Disclosures Forthcoming
Just out from Bloomberg:
Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve must make
public reports about recipients of emergency loans from U.S.
taxpayers under programs created to address the financial
crisis, a federal judge ruled.
This is in relation to a lawsuit filed by Bloomberg LP against the Federal Reserve on November 7, 2008, in Southern District of New York (08-09595), in which Bloomberg sought material loan and collateral data in relation to emergency loans released by the Fed, and which were previously claimed to be non-FOIAble.
This is a large blow against the Fed and specifically against organizations using FOIA loopholes from providing critical information, particularly in cases involving trillions of taxpayer dollars bailing out huge, systematically and politically embedded financial organizations (which lately is pretty much all of them).
The conclusion from the order just issued by District Judge Loretta Preska is as follows:
The Board's Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED, and Bloomberg's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. Specifically:
1. The Board shall produce forwith the Remaining Term Reports within five business days of the date hereof;
2. The Board shall search forthwith records at the FRBNY that constitute "Records of the Board" within the meaning of 12 C.F.R. # 231.2(i)(1); and
3. The parties shall confer following their review of the results of the search and inform the Court by letter no later than September 14, 2009 how they propose to proceed.
The beneficial outcome means that many more FOIA-based lawsuits against the Federal Reserve will now spring up, and with case law on their side, the outcomes of most will likely be on behalf of the plaintiffs. This could detour any short-circuit attempts by either Congress or Senate to prevent a Fed audit, as it may suddenly not be necessary, now that there is this alternative venue to get various pieces of information, previously not available to the general public.
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Last Friday Big Ben said:
"The case of the investment bank Lehman Brothers proved exceptionally difficult, however.... [T]he company's available collateral fell well short of the amount needed to secure a Federal Reserve loan of sufficient size to meet its funding needs. As the Federal Reserve cannot make an unsecured loan, and as the government as a whole lacked appropriate resolution authority or the ability to inject capital, the firm's failure was, unfortunately, unavoidable....
"In contrast, in the case of the insurance company American International Group (AIG), the Federal Reserve judged that the company's financial and business assets were adequate to secure an $85 billion line of credit, enough to avert its imminent failure.
What was this $85-billion-loan-supporting collateral that AIG had? Perhaps that "collateral" will (not) be revealed via Bloomberg's FOIA request.
What's particularly ludicrous is that not all of that AIG money is now a loan, some of it has been converted into equity. So rather than have a collateralized loan, the Fed has an equity position.
The operating units were the collateral.
I will put a $1 on bet that a news something like the following will appear sometimes in future.
"the senate found it very difficult to accept the nomination of Ben Bernanke after it was revealed that chairman did not use his enormous power impartially. On certain occasions the treasury people also did not help him enough to take a proper decision. The outrage that has been seen in the information forums makes it doubly difficult for the senate to accept this nomination"
Hey I have a question? Has there been any decision in the past which helped GS gain access to cheap funds which they have used to ramp up the markets?
Amazing! Isn't this basically what HR 1207 was all about disclosing?
Wooo hoo! Green shoots of hope...
this is our moment
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
its fair to say that the FED is SEEMINGLY on the ropes; i just hope ( yeah i know ) they wont trash the economy ( as if ) in the forthcoming months just to take the heat off themselves ( although i don't think that would work anymore ). We need and economical equivalent of Mike Tyson's 1989-1993 KO punch to finish them.
If this thing has legs, mark my words they will bring the stock market to its knees in the coming months. They won't, nor will their parasitic Wall St. spawn, let this go through without leaving destruction in their path.
No matter, the market needs to correct sharply downwards anyhow, and some interim pain to rid ourselves of the cancer is necessary, no matter when or how we do it.
Yes they will. Forget the stock market, they will suck up liquidity so fast it will make your head spin, and bring the economy to its knees. Just like the Second Bank did when Andrew Jackson tried to bring it down.
Was just going to use that example as well...these bastards will do anything.
Matthylland,
I would request you to desist from using certain words which are of not great quality. I am afraid that general public may not appreciate these words. I just got a feedback from a fund-manager whose attention I had steered towards this website. Use **** in between to drown it out. The whole word stikes back at the readers.
Thank You.
You received negative feedback from a fund manager about using the word 'bastard'? Are fund managers extreme type-A personalities?
Jefferson wrote to James Monroe (who later served as our 5th President, 1817-25) in January, 1815: "The dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens ... must be broken, or it will break us." In 1816, Jefferson wrote to John Tyler (who became our 10th President, 1841-45):
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their father's conquered ... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
To Jackson, the Second Bank symbolized how a privileged class of businessmen oppressed the will of the common people of America. He made clear that he planned to challenge the constitutionality of the bank, much to the horror of its supporters. In response, the director of the bank, Nicholas Biddle, flexed his own political power, turning to members of Congress, including the powerful Kentucky Senator Henry Clay and leading businessmen sympathetic to the bank, to fight Jackson.
The second quote is considered spurious, as the words deflation and inflation did not exist back in 1816.
The More You Know ......::::::::::::*
The market absolutely loves every single aspect of Fed actions which seem to outsiders to be corrupt. Every lie now exposed and every too good to be true deal revealed will be good for stocks.
There was very little negative public sentiment, even and especially among politicians and celebrities, against Al Capone in Chicago. That off the top of my head analogy isn't very good I guess. At any rate the more it seems the markets are managed the better for the market. Why otherwise was Greenspan made into a demigod? If guys with FED on their coats showed up in the futures pits the personalities on CNBC would be orgasmic with delight. Explaining how this was the ultimate expression of free markets.
Who wants to bet this will be appealed?
I bet you $10 it will
i call your bet and raise you another 10 billion and say it wont.
Really... cause a appeal is analogous to admidditing corruption perhaps?
no; not because of that; its simply a bet based on my intuition ( which when translated means i raise you without even knowing my cards ) so tsa bet or what
You don't think the Fed will appeal it, or you don't think it will get repealed by a higher court?
As long as it's tied up in the process long enough for the crisis to pass, or for the ADD-public to lose interest...
Will Bloomberg lose interest?
No, the ADD-public will...
ADD = Attention Deficit Disorder
Precisely. The Fed will tie it up for as long as possible, and if they can't do that, this whole case will probably result in releasing mundane useless info.
The Fed however, will NOT appeal this. The higher up the court chain it goes, the more public attention. They'd never dare let it go to the Supreme Court unless they are buffoons. Though people do give them far too much credit in the intellect department.
Even if they gave some sort of "smoking gun" (which I presume would be destroyed in the worst case scenario) which they won't, instead it'll be useless info, but even if they did, if it is released in a small case, the public won't care. If the public had a brain left they'd of realized human nature by now, but they haven't for thousands of years, so why would they start now?
Banks have been fabricating currency for centuries, even millennia. Even without the Fed, they would still do so (much to the dismay of the Mises fools who don't understand how the deception works, and that the Fed was actually regulating the counterfeiting process keeping a handle on it for stability purposes). Today's banks do what the goldsmiths of old did. The goldsmiths figured out everyone preferred to carry their gold notes and the amount of gold they needed to keep on hand was minimal. Thus, they could "spend"/loan out, tens of times more of "gold notes" than they really had in gold, and no one would be the wiser, since only a fraction of people withdrew the actual gold (it'd make you an easy target for thieves).
In this way, they became more powerful than Kings (who often were in debt to the bankers, financing their wars). One of the great banking houses, the Medicis were one such family, who became monarchs themselves, and 3 of the Medicis even bribed their way to become ruler of all "christendom", Popes. They made massive profits, despite following the usury ban in Europe, which meant they could not loan out money at "interest", yet still they profited.
But how can you make a profit without usury? Only through the methods I described. Lending BEYOND what you have deposited. There was nothing to stop banks from lending gold notes for gold they never had, as long as they had enough gold to deal with day to day transactions. It works the same way with currency, (since our current currency is actually DEBT not credit) banks are allowed to issue "commercial bank money" (as opposed to "central bank money"), so essentially banks only have to keep as much "central bank money" on hand to deal with day to day transactions.
Just the same as the gold bankers only had to keep enough gold to deal with the day to day transactions. Simple, huh? In the event of a bank run, like in the past, the banks would just go bankrupt.
The term "bankrupt" comes from "broken bank", when bankers would literally destroy their bench (bank=bench) they peddled from and disappear with whatever profits they had. This practice goes back over 2,000 years, to the Roman "argentarii" who would often run off with the money entrusted to them.
Thus, without the Fed even, the slavery will not end. You would have to outlaw all banking or humanity will never be freed. But humans don't want to be responsible, and will always want money they don't have, and be willing to become debt slaves. Who here can say they have no credit card, or have never gotten a loan, or mortgage? Few indeed. Or who can say they wouldn't be more at ease with a gold note which is not as noticeable as gold swinging around in our pockets to the thieves?
Thus we are all responsible for enabling these criminals. There is a reason the only humans Jesus ever got angry at were the bankers (they were Roman argentarii bankers back then) whom he called "thieves" and knocked over their banks (benches).
that it wont be repealed by a higher court; the appeal itself is standard procedure; I'm not THAT stupid.
We should get Marla in here on that. My limited legal basis says that there's a level of proof that a summary judgement by it's nature must achieve. Not something capriciously overturned to the best of my knowledge.
CB I am more interested in just how any determination will be made as to whether or not the documents furnished by the Fed are actually responsive. If they redact everything, for example. This fight is far from over. We still need the audit; we need people going in there and looking at, and disclosing, everything.
No one should let this ruling diminish their vigor in pursuing 1207/604.
maybe that's the plan; FED "loses" the case; gives the necessary documents ( of course redacted ) and say that it will be willing to do so in the future and that HR1207/S604 is really not necessary. Maybe I'm paranoid, but if i was BB that's how i would play it.
Oh yeah... An emergency appeal to a FOIA.
THAT would instill confidence!!!
Bwua ha hoo hoo ha ha haa!
That's possible. Dick Cheney worked the appeals courts until he could find a judge who would help him keep the Energy Task Force documents sealed.
However, there's a flip side to that coin: If the Fed appeals, it looks like a coverup. Besides, the Federal Reserve isn't actually a government body, so they can't exactly claim national security.
Either way, if the stink from this thing get too big, the Fed ends up on the ropes anyway.
an amicus brief could be filed by the cia or
nsa claiming national security.....this is one
of the benefits of the gestapo act..i mean
patriot act....
The appeal has already been decided. Check it out. FED will not like to be fed commonsense. It will fight back with all its might.
Thanks
I suddenly feel warm and fuzzy inside.
This is potentially very big. It seems almost too good to be true. Expect an appeal.
Leonard Koscianski
More importantly expect a veeeeery long appeals process considering the potential impact that releasing this information will have on the political and economic landscape...
Ultimately this judgement will be overturned... take that to the bank... but not before it derails S.604 from achieving critical mass.
Wagers anyone?
Bloomberg for the next presidency. I can bet on this one.
woohoooooooooooo
It will end up in the Supreme Court
Filed on November 7th?
This is as good as 1207, which was going to take too long.
this is a foia request which in no way carries the
implications which hr 1207 carries....
one is ad hoc the other is an organic attachment
to a bureaucracy....
will give up some sort of as an branch but truthfully it will be one that will be of no use or consequense to them going forward.
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
No way. This is a drop in the bucket of what 1207 would be, if done legitimately (virtually zero chance of that, but the fallout of obstruction would/will be worth the fight). But this will hopefully open the floodgates of FOIAs on the Fed from every walk of American life.
Home flippers are back with avengence in so cal. Flippers are making $100k in three months flipping to you guessed it american taxpayers via FHA. So glad our govt is the new sanctioned subprime low down payment provider.
FHA - the new toxic receptacle.
If you think animal spirits are wild in the stock markets just watch what is happening in the low end of the real estate market.
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2009/08/our-flippers-part-1/#comment-20550
FHA will implode....just a question of when. All the mortgage scammers found their way to FHA some time ago and are they pulling the wool over FHA.
An analysis of their options looking forward, particularly in the realm of the high interest rates
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
great start. i've always said that out of our 3 branches of government, the Judiciary is the only one we can count on. if they go, so goes the republic.
the Fed has a very delicate political decision to make in terms of the appeal......if they do appeal, the House bill calling for a Fed audit has a much greater likelihood of seeing the light of day. Either way it's a win for the little guy as TD said.
the Judiciary is the only one we can count on. if they go, so goes the republic.
try again; did you know that 99% of court cases is won by either state or federal government; statistically that's an anomaly of giant proportions; realistically; its called a repression.
Yep.
And forbid that you actually exercise your rights to defend yourself. Under the CCCA you get an enhancement for doing so.
but put this percentage into perspective Layne; if the same thing would to be a fact in Iran ( and its not, there the percentage is in the area of 70 % ) the USA and Israel and the EU would be all over this calling for legal restructuring if Irans legal system and Israel would threaten them with WMDs and shit like that; but in the US its completely normal and no one even mentions it. I really feel sorry for you guys; once a great country turned into practically nothing.
Again, yep.
Then it does not take much to look at the figures and decide that an error rate of 2% would indicate that 20K of every 1M are mistakes.
I suppose they need the extra workers at UNICOR factories making office cubes and such at 19c - 1.05 an hour...
hey man; prison operators need to justify their current P/E ratio.
notwithstanding your statistics cheeky, my point (which was not communicated well by me) was that the Judiciary is the one we can count on relative to the Legislative and Executive Departments.
I give even more credulence to the fourth estate, at least now that they have some competition from the new media.
sorry deadhead; communication breakdown :D yep; true; it would be awesome if there was a site similar to ZH which would do the same thing in judicial arena what ZH is doing in financial. Well one can only hope.
Great idea, Marla has a legal background!
you mean Marla's own site like a spin-off of ZH but following ZH ideology. That would kick some serious ass!! Someone should e-mail Marla and pitch the idea.
If you think those statistics are repressive, you should see FINRA's Arbitration stats!!!
I'm not sure Bloomberg qualifies as "a little guy", but I get your point...
would this in anyway tie into the reason they appointed a union thug to head the ny fed ?
that's just a little cheat street suck up to the obamas.
Anything worth reading will be redacted.
I am willing to wager that the Director of National Intelligence will file a Stay under the authority granted to that office. And that this Stay will be filed and a temporary order issued by the Court of Appeals blocking this District Court action within the next five days.
We all should know by now that the government and the oligarchs will do everything within their power and reach to maintain the grip on power. Everything.
that seems reasonable....it is also a lot of
political capital to expend so we know that the
stakes are high and a huge gigantic rotten
corpse lay at the bottom
further evidence that we are governed by a corrupt
illegitimate regime....
One of the best aspects of poking the hornets nest it to see what & how they choose to defend themselves... So instructive.
in this case, they hired an X-Enron lobbyist to "bolster" their image, according to a June 5, 2009 article in Bloomberg.com. What a perfect fit--the lost 9 trillion dollars hid in special purpose vehicles, a little lesson they learned from their friends at Enron.
I like that analogy
I'll take that bet.
Don't get too carried away on this one. The DNI not only has little power, but couldn't care less about the Fed. Obama appointed a career military man to lead it, and he proceeded to restructure it in the form of a military hierarchy, with inviolable chains of command and reporting levels, etc., thus insuring that it would never do anything of substance. You should be more upset about the waste of money the DNI is rather that flatter it with powers it could not even dream of having.
The government is not a fine tuned machine. Fed, Treasury and Wall Street may be well connected (because of the revolving doors), but among other USG Agencies, everybody hates everybody else and guards his turf at the expense of the greater good. Witness the lack of cooperation pre-9/11 between CIA, FBI and NSA. DNI is just another fly thrown into the ointment, a kind of focal point against which everyone else can now direct his scorn.
Will you square up the bet on PayPal?
Do you remember the 2006 Executive Order empowering the DNI to permit US companies and "sensitive private institutions" from disclosing data determined to be important to the national security interests of the US to; the SEC, inwestors or other publicly accessible forums (courts included)?
I fully agree with your premise on the structure and dynamic of the DNI. However, since the financial services industry & markets have been deemed a "critical national security asset" and defending them is now a matter of the highest priority within government I am sure that a request for Stay will be forthcoming (See # 46988). I am willing to gamble on DNI. Odds?
The influence of Goldman Sachs does extend to the intelligence community. Stephen "no conflict of interest" Friedman, while on the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors, and while Chairman of the Board of the NY Federal Reserve, was also Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board.
"In 1999, Bill Clinton appointed Friedman to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. In 2005, Bush named Friedman chairman of that board, a surprise second-term replacement for Brent Scowcroft. He has been chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board, an independent body that assesses the state of national intelligence, since January 2006."
http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Stephen_Friedman
Goldman Sachs Stephen "no conflict of interest" Friedman was Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board from January 2006 to January 2009.
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/about-us/leadership/board-of-direc...
Talk about front-running possibilities! This could be the MotherShip of Front Running.
best post on this thread.....thank you!!!
Indeed.
Ditto! I must admit all this insider information is making me feel like I don't matter anymore!....;-(
I am reading the attached WSJ/GS article. Can someone please explain to me how it is legal for a GS analyst to share investment tips with internal traders and select clients only to change ratings on the stock discussed several days later? IS this NOT FRONT RUNNING? From my perspective, if a brokerage firm trades for their own account, it is fine for an analyst to feed the internal trader with information. What is NOT fine, is for the same analyst to have the ability to make a PUBLIC recommendation on ANY stock that is discussed with a TRADER. If you feed a trader, you CANNOT follow with an opinion to the general public!
Regulators to Examine Goldman's Trade Tips
Love Sue Craig...but former Nasdaq whore Gleacher is now lobby for GS...
The day this gets released on Bloomberg is the day I'm shorting the market (esp financials). This information will easily refute the "stress tests" and show that none of them actually passed. I'm just curious as to who GS is going to pay off so they can get ahead of the news release.
it is a big deal.
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
Wow...if ever there was an article that gave me confidence to short the market this would be it. SPX at 800... the Supreme Court overturns this decision.
I respectfully disagree. Best time to short the SPX is when the sentiment readings go 95% bulls.
Silver recently did it - watch.
Few indicators are as predictive as fading investor sentiment.
Did hell just freeze over?
it's the right ruling but only time will tell if the ruling will be obeyed or appealed....and whether the judge will be deep-sixed....
given our exceedingly corrupt judiciary i am quite shocked that this ruling came down...i suspect to hear of a dead judge any day now....
TD, thanks for the PDF and keeping us upto date as usual. I love the part (about pages 43+ or so) about discount window access information argument the Fed makes and how the judge destroys it.
If this is not appealed, then it surely shall be ignored. Either/or, HR 1207 is more akin to an audit, which may be necessary to shift through all of the shite, to truly smell the tale.
Admittedly, I'm torn. If disclosure causes runs on the troubled banks, then that increases the pressure on the FDIC and forces more bailouts, then we're better off not knowing. However, enough time has passed to where hopefully depositors won't bail.
We'll see.
You have disqualified yourself yesterday with your pathetic and apologetic garbage you wrote in the comments under Ron Paul post. I don't want to be rude; but you would feel much better if you return to Yahoo Boards.
"I don't want to be rude; but you would feel much better if you return to Yahoo Boards."
Interesting comment. CNBC has been attacking the blogs (probably as a baiting ploy to get a bit of ratings), but in the end, their rears are cooked with or without the blogosphere. The big threat ZH and other financial blogs pose is to the yahoo MBs, the wsj, etc.
I know this is a minority opinion--let's see how things play out over the next few years.
And you stick to your usual personal attack, devoid of any reason or facts. Why don't you tell us again about what the Kennedy EO was about or about the vote on the Fed?
When you post something accurate, it'll be a first.
i am all for the house of cards to come tumbling
down....i have a deep contempt for the "logic"
that we have to enable, support, or extend
corruption or mismanagement for the sake of
national security or too big too fail institutions
or systemic solvency.....
cancer is never cured by pretending that it's
better not to operate or treat....
by the time this is all over lots of innocent
and guilty people will be hurt but letting the
cancer grow is malpractice....
after giving this a lot of thought, I agree with you. but you know, I need to figure out how to make sure nobody steals or hurts my children in the meantime. Of course though, that's my responsibility, not that of our 'benevolent dictators,' and all things considered, it will be better that way. But it won't be any walk in the park, which now has many new connotations it hasn't before, in that mad max sort of way.
i told my CONgressman that the government
should let the chips fall where they may but
send fema to set up tent cities, food lines,
and other makeshift life support until the mess
can be sorted out....
the system will heal quite quickly once the
the non-performing loans and other bad assets
are liquidated....it will be ugly but the time
has come for major surgery - amputations and all....
the incompetent management who created the mess
has to be removed more urgently than the actual
mess....otherwise they will do it all over again....
contrary to the popular mythology the world will
not come to an end - only the lives of the
crooked banksters....
The "house of cards" can't come tumbling down - it's federally guaranteed. In addition, do you really want to destroy the economy?? You think it's bad now, we'd return to a third world status....
So you'd prefer living in a lie which can crash at any moment (as we've seen) to living in reality with control of your own destiny and genuine hope? Is that what you're trying to say? My god, man.
SWR don't mind him; he's a PR guy who defends the FED, GS and the like here on ZH for months. It's a troll, don't feed him.
Who should be ignored, one who deals in facts or one who deals in myths, lies and innuendo?
Why don't you go find where I defend "GS and the like"...
Go right on bubba. Back up something you say - at least once.
No, there is much wrong, but we need to correct what is wrong without killing the patient.
why a forced bailout? companies need to fail to make the system work
One can only hope that this time we won't get a bailout...you'll hate that outcome won't you?
In the meantime lets just sweep all our problems under the rug and pretend they're not there. Good thinking.
Well, well, well, if it isn't the Judge back. I missed your posts on the Ron Paul thing as I was on vacation.
How is that PR job at the Fed going? I see you are still here, trying to defend the Fed at every opportunity.
This has to be a big blow to your reputation, can't buy off a Federal judge, huh?
If you post, a little knowledge of what you talking about would be helpful. I don't 'defend the fed' I simply defend the truth. The Fed is a human institution and as such has multiple problems.
I just don't believe the cure is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think a little knowledge and reason should apply.
But that offends many here.
Truth: the central banking system is the central supporting pillar of Leviathan government and the principal enabler of government-supported insider looting of the common man via inflation and moral hazard. Destroying (via non-violent means) the central bank is the first mission in the restoration of the liberty which is my birthright, by restoring my property rights; specifically, the right to not be looted by government-induced inflation and bailouts.
Auditing the Fed is step #1. Closing the Fed and arresting the officers is step #2. Step #3 is a Supreme Court ruling that gibbeting is NOT cruel and unusual punishment for treason, which includes central banking.
Since when is something devoid of reason and history now "Truth"??
Do you rant often or just about the Fed and stuff you know nothing about.
Funny, no one on here debates me on the facts/history.
That should tell you something.
Fact: Newly-created money has full buying power. Buying power diminshes over time as the marketplace feels its influence. Newly-created money is given first to banks and the US gov (T market). This is insider looting-by-inflation, theft of buying power from the common man.
Fact: the existence of a "lender of last resort" introduces moral hazard. The central bank is the lender of last resort. Therefore, moral hazard originates in the central bank.
Fact: governments always inflate their currencies to pay for wars; in the past this was done by going off the gold standard. INterestingly, we left the gold standard in 1933 and have been at war almost constantly since then, both numerous hot wars, mostly undeclared, plus various endless wars-on-our-civil-rights such as the war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terrorism, etc. War is nearly always the source of the emergency need for more money. Wars are started by governments, but fought (and paid for) by the common man, through debt and inflation.
These are facts; care to refute them?
Give me a break.
It will be 90% redacted and unreadable.
On the grounds of national security, it will be appealed and there's not a snowball's chance in hell we'll see one syllable.
On the CNBC website as breaking news, story to follow:
"President Obama to Announce Fed Chairman Bernanke's Reappointment Tuesday"
Any guesses on how big of a jump we will see in the markets tomorrow?
Who wants to bet Ben doesn't finish his second term?
why wait so long? i'd like to see him fail his
first term...maybe someone will put some
nanothermite in his coffee.....
he'll have it as long as he wants it. he gives the administration and congress the only thing they really care about. money. and he's given wall street the best thing they could ever ask for, free unlimited loss insurance on the taxpayer.
Arthur Burns 2.
Who wants to bet America doesn't survive his second term?
On some grounds like it's in the interest of national security, it'll be appealed. Wait for it..
Obama is about to throw Bernanke under the bus. About 20 min. ago, reports say White house will nominate him to another term. Ben is gonna take some heat!
I agree. What better way to hedge against the timing challenges inherent in our ecomonmy. When some thing does go terribly wrong he could be the scapegoat. Replace him with someone who will "do a better job" will be the regrowth of the hydra head. I think Big Ben is knowingly being put into a position to "Take one for the team".
Another federal judge takes a stand. The tide is turning in legal land. Not much hope for the bad guys if the judges turn against the oligarchy.
Judges do not like repeat cases about FOIA. Loser once, that is life, loser twice, better not come back.
interesting timing of the Bernanke reappointment announcement and the Fed losing this law suit.
Never a dull moment in this house of cards.
Fantastic, I want the old buffoon to lose his ass. I am sick and tired of the fed/treasury garbage insurance business and the pimp media scamming people day in and day out with their inane rants on how everything is just fine.
now if someone could file a foia against the white house working group on financial markets....even though they don't keep notes or records of any kind....
Believe me there is an economic war powers memo in Obama s desk
reappointment = up 100 spx
True lies, nothing but true lies. BB
Ok, deal is done. BB got reappointed, BO got debt monetization at any way he pleases. As for you, J6P, you are cooked unless you can front run GS.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/24/AR2009082403291.html
Why do I feel that China just picked up the phone and told their banks to sell UST hard. They are not happy about QE and with BB back in the drivers seat it will now continue unabated.
They have been working on a way out for a while, this announcement won't change what they already have in motion. I am sure they are not surprised, in fact, it was probably already vetted with them, and they smiled nicely and said "sure, sounds great", all the while plotting to free themselves from the dollar.
Hyperinflation....Yippie we have our boy back for many more years...
Not if the currently negative marginal productivity of debt can help it!
http://www.professorfekete.com/articles.asp
Hurray!
President will issue a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY and stop the release of the information.
Boy, that will give the appearance of the Administrations emphasis on accountability and transparency a big shot in the arm (that was sarcasm for the tone impared).
So far, I'm still wondering what we are going the get with Change We Can Believe In.
So does this mean that Bernanke will be reneging on the QE promise and making it rain with fresh wet bills?
All I can say is "very interesting".
give em hell harry
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
No way this hits main stream media and us without GS already being in front of it.
What exactly does Bloomberg and the rest of us get out of this - to learn which banks got bailedout? Big deal most already know that the big 19-gt bailed out and some have since paid back TARP money.
Now, tell us what was posted as collateral and at what price - then you might have something.
I got a funny feeling to is going to lead to a whole lot of nothing.
"Bloomberg did not serve a FOIA request to the FRBNY"
Bloomberg argued that FRBNY records were subject to FOIA. Judge said not in this instance because the above statement, and left Bloomberg's assertion unresolved. Are there any of those FOIA requests waiting in the wings?
The Illuminati will find another way and a Mayor will go down the same way as Elliot, Blag, and a Palmetto State Governor.
That being said, a hearty hear-hear! History will remember those who tried to turn the tide. Until then, much slogging lies ahead.
"it will be a long, hard slog"
-Donald Rumsfeld, Demon of Hell, Ninth Circle
The Fed made the case for confidentiality by turning in a few affadivits from jagoff economists making the tv talking points case of secrecy or doom. The judges response was my favorite quote...pg 40-1:
"The risk of looking weak to competitors and shareholders is an inherent risk of market participation; information tending to increase that risk does not make the information priviledged or confidential under Exemption 4."
I'm so glad that common sense won out over the "if we tell the truth people will see how shitty things really are" argument.
This is what John Jansen of acrossthecurve.com has to say about Bernanke. No wonder that sycophant (and his 10 readers) hates ZH and all it stands for.
-------
The financial press is rife with stories that tomorrow President Obama will reappoint Ben Bernanke to another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve System.
I am sure that will create a genuine cacophony here in cyberspace as the gentleman stirs some passions here.
We will have to wait until I am pushing up daisies for the verdict of history on the man’s tenure and stewardship during the global meltdown.
But without the advantage of that long view,I will vote that history will treat him gently and accord him a high grades for leading the Federal Reserve through the crisis.
Gee, let's see, where did Jansen spend most of his career?
Bailout-fail, banks are still carrying loans at a valuation near par, ie., toxic assets disguised as good.
stimulus- fail. Now the cities and counties everywhere are starting layoffs to hit the budget gap.
Quantitative easing, fail. 10 year ust still higher than 3. Foreclosures rising and housing price plummeting
Yeah, let Bernanke preside over the second great greatest depression which leads to the revolution of the new century.
Got ammo, Got Glock, Got food?
Judge Preska's 48 page decision shows just how ridiculous the NYFRB has been. She cites case after case from the Supreme Court that her decision is based on.
It wasn't that long ago that Bernanke testified in front of Congress and said he would take steps to make the Fed more "open". Well here's his chance, comply with the Judge's order, and as she put it, forthwith.
"The Board would seemingly sweep within the scope of Exemption 4 all information about borrowers that anyone throughout the entire market place might consider to be negative. THE EXCEPTION CANNOT WITHSTAND SUCH INFLATION" (emphasis mine).
If one accepts the premise that inflation is the unsustainable growth of money and credit, the biggest source of inflation is the repression of the diffusion of informations that makes the unsustainability apparent to any reasonable economic agent.
The Federal reserve nailed for "inflationary" behavior. That is sweet ! Nice missile from Justice Preska ...
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve must make records about emergency lending to financial institutions public within five days because it failed to convince a judge the documents should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling.
The Fed has refused to name the borrowers, the amounts of loans or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.
“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t have the right to know,” said Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We’re gratified the court is defending the public’s right to know what is being done in the public interest.”
‘Involuntary Investor’
Bloomberg said in the suit U.S. taxpayers need to know the risks behind the central bank’s $2 trillion in lending because the public is an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks.
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet about doubled beginning in September to more than $2 trillion because of a historic attempt to rescue financial institutions. For the week ended Aug. 19, Fed assets rose 2.3 percent to $2.06 trillion as the central bank bought more mortgage-backed securities. Non- government securities were allowed to be purchased by the Fed for the first time.
The Freedom of Information Act obliges federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. The Bloomberg suit, filed in New York, doesn’t seek money damages.
David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman, said the board’s staff was reviewing the ruling and declined to comment on it at this time.
The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
This is great. Question is, how many people will actually read the FOIA documents?
This is cause to break out a bottle of my best wine. Hooray....where's Marla and her music when you need it! Fucking fantastic!
Keep your wine for the Supreme Court decision, that will come after the Appeals Court decision. I hope this is a wine that ages well !
OK, this is good, but without having all the pieces to the puzzle it is hard to put things together.
TYLER, MARLA, can you suggest a way that we could make a FOIA request for the trades done on behalf of the Presiden't Working Group, per Executive Order 12631?
Executive Order 12631--Working Group on Financial Markets
Source: The provisions of Executive Order 12631 of Mar. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 9421, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 559, unless otherwise noted.
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish a Working Group on Financial Markets, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment. (a) There is hereby established a Working Group on Financial Markets (Working Group). The Working Group shall be composed of:
(1) the Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee;
(2) the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or his designee;
(3) the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or his designee; and
(4) the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or her designee.
(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee, shall be the Chairman of the Working Group.
Sec. 2. Purposes and Functions. (a) Recognizing the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence, the Working Group shall identify and consider:
(1) the major issues raised by the numerous studies on the events in the financial markets surrounding October 19, 1987, and any of those recommendations that have the potential to achieve the goals noted above; and
(2) the actions, including governmental actions under existing laws and regulations (such as policy coordination and contingency planning), that are appropriate to carry out these recommendations.
(b) The Working Group shall consult, as appropriate, with representatives of the various exchanges, clearinghouses, self-regulatory bodies, and with major market participants to determine private sector solutions wherever possible.
(c) The Working Group shall report to the President initially within 60 days (and periodically thereafter) on its progress and, if appropriate, its views on any recommended legislative changes.
Sec. 3. Administration. (a) The heads of Executive departments, agencies, and independent instrumentalities shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide the Working Group such information as it may require for the purpose of carrying out this Order.
(b) Members of the Working Group shall serve without additional compensation for their work on the Working Group.
(c) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of funds therefore, the Department of the Treasury shall provide the Working Group with such administrative and support services as may be necessary for the performance of its functions.
Source: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12...
My understanding is that the Working Group (aka PPT) does much of its work by influencing others to participate in the market at various key times and in various ways. Hopefully any FOIA request will include details on exactly who they asked to do what, and when.
"Section 2 (2) (b) The Working Group shall consult....with major market participants to determine private sector solutions wherever possible."
Yes, let's ask Goldman Sachs what the Working Group should do since they are real experts, and it's not like they would abuse the confidence for their own gain.
Every step one takes away from free markets decreases market fairness and transparency in an exponential fashion. We are either capitalists, or we're not.
It's about time we decide.
HAHAHAHAHA
I'm counting the days until the powers that be launch a major false flag operation to divert everyones attention from financial issues to stay in control. Watch this space.
This is were Obama becomes king!
He knew that the fed and gs where abusing his ass but let it slide and smiled as the banksters raped us.
Now he can through them all under the bus and socialize the financial system kind of like China?
NO FINES JUST A LITTLE PRISON TIME WITH BUBBA AND THE BOYS
BEN DOVER LALALAL
i just tried to watch CNBC/GE , I made an hour and that is all I could take. No mention so far of the FOIA problem with the fed. Im sure that that was nixed by GE Mgmt for reasons we all know, all 50 billion of them.