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Sen. Jim Bunning Releases 70 Responses By Bernanke As More Organizations Come In Support Of Pittman Crusade
Bunning Q&A summary: more Mutual Assured Destruction, more of the same Racketeering that we have all grown to love and respect from the Federal Reserve, more obfuscations, more Colonel Jessup bullshit (aka "You can't handle the truth"). With Bernanke's reconfirmation vote coming on Thursday, all Senators should read the latest garbled and encrypted pamphlet from the Fed as to why nobody in America is smart or relevant enough to have an understanding of the key items that determine US monetary policy (except for Goldman Sachs and its alumni, of course). Also, we are happy to announce that the questions proposed by our friend, the Cunning Realist, were incorporated in Bunning's questionnaire. As Cunning submits:
I just found out that Senator Bunning submitted to Bernanke that list of 15 questions I had for his hearing. Perhaps most interesting is Bernanke's reply to my question about covert intervention in the equity market...he replied only in terms of the government and the Fed, and ignored the part about a "proxy." Scroll all the way to the bottom of my post here:
In other news, all major news organizations have filed an Amicus Brief on behalf of Bloomberg, and the initiative launched by the late and great Mark Pittman, urging Federal Court to uphold the decision that the Fed should disclose confidential information about loans made to financial institutions. From Dow Jones:
The brief, which was filed in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by several media companies including Dow Jones & Co., New York Times Co. (NYT), the Associated Press and Reuters America LLC, asked the court to uphold a lower court's decision that would force the central bank to give Bloomberg records about some of its "last resort" lending programs, including the discount window. Bloomberg originally requested the records under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
A spokesman for the Fed said, "We will respond to the arguments in the amicus brief in our brief to the court."
The news organizations' brief argues that "the substantial public interest" in disclosing the information outweighs any risk of harm, and that the Fed's appeal of the decision doesn't meet the requirements of a FOIA exemption that protects confidential information.
"In this case, the enormous public interest in knowing how the Board implemented massive, unprecedented lending programs compels disclosure of the reports at issue," the brief says.
Two more days until the fate of America is decided by one hundred largely corrupt politicians.
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Enough is enough, time to just end the fucker.
On a related note, I am buying gold and silver hand over fist in anticipation of that a-hole getting re-appointed.
Yes, sorry Ben Shalom, you won't get my vote. Go back to Princeton.
Bernanke is a snake oil salesman.
Questions for the "Honorable Ben Benanke" I'm getting sick to my stomach.
Update: and now he is TIME "person of the year" Insanity.
The frequency of the propaganda waves becoming more intense. Getting close to a major event I feel.
“We can’t have bankers going to Congress saying we can audit the Fed because if you audit the Fed we are going to crash your system, we’re holding you hostage..under the US Constitution that is a high crime and misdemeanor, that is actually Treason...how is that different than Osama Bin Laden? They are causing as much damage…Osama is a pussycat is terms of damage” – Max Keiser
Rep. Brad Sherman Martial Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
Bernanke threatens congress with dollar collapse if HR1207 passes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTKzB8bIf-I&NR=1
If one owned Wells Fargo, JPM, B of A or RBS bank stock and sold it because by looking at its financials it was severely short of cash but now we are finding out that the banks were secretly given hundreds of billions by the central banks undisclosed to shareholders. Why is this not fraud and market manipulation? What ...about those who took a short positions because the information was withheld and lost billions?
also, BoE Secretly Loaned $102.9 Billion to RBS http://www.cnbc.com/id/34126826
Federal Reserve Banks Secretly Lent Out $2.2 Trillion and Refuses to tell Senate Where Money Went
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOpQkRsEfaU ... See More
Presidential Working Group on Financial Market Directly Buying Stock in the Stock Market
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X06kz9dzXho
So the banks secretly receive hundreds of billions in interest free money from the Fed. They buy US Treasuries and receive interest from the Taxpayer for buying the Treasuries. Then they turn around and also use free Fed money to purchase each others stock to bid it up the value of equities....The Fed and trillions of fake new money is the market. Audit the Fed!
All of the rhetoric against an Audit of the corrupt/criminal Federal Reserve System by the FED shills is a smokescreen. This is what we want to know from the Fed: Where did this $2.3 -$3 trillion go? Who received it? Under what terms and conditions? What impact does this have on share prices? Did the banks/institutions... that secretly received it disclose this to its shareholders? Was this a material transaction that should have been disclosed to shareholders? Where did this money come from? Under what authority? How does the Fed get this money back? Were these institutions authorized/directed by the Fed or treasury to use this money to inflate the purchase price of equities? Has some of this money been made available to the Presidents Working Group on Financial Markets? Was this disclosed to those taking Put or short positions in the market? Was this disclosed to individuals who personally benefitted?
Bernanke's answer on the Fed playing in the stock market. Carefully parsed words BUT, BUT, BUT....the question of a proxy is avoided due to response structure. Yes, it does get into that famous Clintonian matter of "what the definition of is, is"
Frankly, I think the Fed is lying. Prove me wrong with a full audit of balance sheet AND cash flow for the past 3 yrs at a minimum
50. Before the financial crisis there was a widespread sense, especially on Wall Street trading desks, that the stock market was strangely resilient. This encouraged excessive risk-taking in various types of assets. Do you have direct or indirect knowledge of the Federal Reserve or any government entity or proxy ever intervening to support the stock market (or any individual stock) via futures or in any other way? If yes, who decides the timing of such intervention and with what criteria? How is it funded? Which Wall Street firm handles the orders, and who sees them before they are executed?
The Federal Reserve has not intervened to provide support to the stock market or individual stocks by trading in futures or any other financial instrument. I have no knowledge of any other U.S. government entity providing such support.
Has the fed provided funds to any institution, whether private, government or quasi government, that the Fed has knowledge or should have known that these institutions were placing orders, purchasing or intervening in any financial market, individual stock or providing financial guarantees to any said institution?
Name all institutions that have received Federal Reserve funds, list the date of the transactions, amount received and provide a copy of the agreement between the Fed and the institution.
Grayson was asking the Fed lawyer that question a few weeks ago at a hearing. He finally admitted it was through their primary dealer. When asked who that was he said JPM. Shocked, shocked I tell ya!
It is stupifyingly naive to depend upon the courts. The courts are every bit as much a part of the regime as are the Congress and the White House. I would not hold out hope of anyone's actually seeing the Fed audited or Bernanke's appointment upended any time soon, the Paul/Grayson effort's earlier success notwithstanding.
If you're looking for meaningful change you will have to wait until every street and mall in Washington DC is filled with angry faces and the economy has been brought to a standstill by a general strike. Only then can antiseptic be applied properly to the open sore that is American public life. No health will be introduced into our economy until first the political illness has been cured. And that means starting afresh after each and every one of these slugs are detained, interrogated and publically tried. No stone can be left unturned. Then and only then can our democracy be restored.
Once the people finally come to their senses it usually ends very badly for the oligarchs...just ask Mussolini...
http://www.eutopia.be/pixelpost_v1.7.1/index.php?showimage=27
If I recall, shot, pitchforked and hung up side down. My kind of party!
I agree with that. They just where those stupid black robes to throw off the dim.
Well said!! +1
Does it feel like we are being managed and led to believe that this potential dissolution will happen only to find the same motherf*ckers running the next bigger IMF/World bank in the future? Even the possibility seems to good to be true.
Read #25 then #24 then #22..
Vote ... it is the preferred method of throwing the bums out.
Until and unless Washington is afraid that they will lose their jobs, they will continue doing what they want to do.
And ... as much as I dislike the idea ... I would argue that voting against all incumbents is the way to go.
And if we have a series of election whereby we purge these yahoos ... so be it.
Voter enforced term limits.
Audit the Fed ... nobody gets to spend American Taxpayer dollars without fully disclosing how it is spent. There is no such thing as a benevolent ruler.
More letters to Texas Senators Cornyn and Hutchison:
"Today, all major news organizations filed an Amicus Brief ... urging Federal Court to uphold the decision that the Fed should disclose confidential information about loans made to financial institutions...
With Bernanke's reconfirmation vote coming on Thursday, all Senators should ask ... why nobody in America is smart or relevant enough to have an understanding of the key items that determine US monetary policy (except for Goldman Sachs and its alumni, of course).
On Thursday, vote no to Bernanke."
nicely done Athena
i'm writing to Schumer and Gillibrand this evening.
(like we don't know how Schumer is going to vote, lol!)
These days, all I do is google my senator and send an email. Letters are actually archaic. Using some ZH links, I found that my senators biggest contributors are from finance so there is little hope for immediate remediation. However I make a big difference because only 10% of the people vote - I have 10 to 1 leverage.
Really, what's $3 trillion amonst friends. The real criminal here is the .gov. They make Ben look like he's not even trying.
Interview of Mark Pittman by Columbia Journalism Review
http://anonymousmonetarist.blogspot.com/2009/12/dont-need-to-be-weatherman-to-know_08.html
We have numerous banks— dozens, maybe hundreds that are insolvent. And they become more insolvent every day because more people quit paying their mortgage loans, and more guys move out of the shopping center, and more people quit paying their credit cards. But nobody wants to have the adult conversation…We need to be honest about what the problem is here, how big it is, and how we’re going forward to clean it up, and who’s going to pay for it.
TA: Basically the charade that’s going on here is that they haven’t marked these assets down yet because that would show they’re insolvent.
MP: But a lot of [the assets] have gone to the Fed, though, as collateral for loans. They’re still on their balance sheet, but you borrowed against them. We don’t know if those are cracked CDO’s or prime RMBS…
TA: That’s what you guys are suing (the Federal Reserve) for—to find out what the collateral is.
MP: Yeah, and that’s the secret part of the story that nobody wants to let you know.
TA: Because it’s worth pennies on the dollar or dimes on the dollar.
MP: Yeah, and then everybody’s going to go “Oh my God, we’re lending ninety cents on something that’s worth twenty or thirty?”
(Yes Virginia there is no collateral. -AM)
Oh... and the answers Bernanke gave on MBS purchases are incredulous. You're buying over a $1 trillion of assets on your bloated balance sheet because an "implicit" guarantee has now been assumed to be "explicit". Therfore, the Federal Reserve is guaranteed principal despite the value of the underlying collteral.
Just because you buy MBS near par does not mean that losses are incurred. It just means that you're egregiously hiding your losses on the basis of an interpreation not publicly backed by the U.S. Treasury.
I gather that means that if Fed purchased MBS is explicitly guaranteed-- ALL agency obligations are explcitily guaranteed by the U.S. government.
I guess if you have a Fannie, Freddie or Ginnie mortgage-- there's no reason to pay another dime. The government has it ALL covered. If the Fed doesn't expect losses on MBS because principal paymets are backstopped, any existing MBS holder is guarantted to get their principal back.
Am I wrong about any of this????
If not, Ben Bernanke is a f&cking idiot!
'I just found out that Senator Bunning submitted to Bernanke that list of 15 questions I had for his hearing. Perhaps most interesting is Bernanke's reply to my question about covert intervention in the equity market...he replied only in terms of the government and the Fed, and ignored the part about a "proxy." Scroll all the way to the bottom of my post here'
Read this actual Financial Times article with special emphasis on the last sentence ...
By Greg Farrell, Henny Sender and Nicole Bullock in New Yorkand Dave Shellock in LondonLast updated: November 25 2008 01:42
Financial Times
Analysts said the federal action reflected concerns Citi was “too big to fail” – as Vikram Pandit, Citigroup chief executive, suggested when he told employees “this was about the US financial system and the banking system”.
Under the plan, the Treasury will buy $20bn in preferred shares in Citi, which will pay the government annual dividends of 8 per cent. The new shares are in addition to the $25bn in preferred shares already owned by the government. The deal also includes guarantees for $306bn in domestic assets, including residential and commercial mortgages, leveraged loans and auction-rate securities. Citi’s credit card business is not covered.
Citi, which has dedicated about $8bn in reserves to cover assets in the portfolio, agreed to shoulder an additional $29bn in losses on its own. The government will take 90 per cent of any losses on the remaining $269bn in assets, with Citi absorbing 10 per cent.
Regulators considered more aggressive action, even discussing plans to buy common shares of Citi in the open market to “squeeze” short sellers, who bet on the company’s decline, participants in the talks say. The proposal – which recalls strategies employed by central bankers in the past – was rejected.
Do you have an original link to the article?
Imagine you could do a search if you have a FT account.
Could find the link on their site but it would be firewalled.
Cut and paste'd after I did a double-take on the paper edition while having my morning coffee.
Pretty wild, eh?
Looks like this article has been scrubbed..no where to be found on FT
No it was not scrubbed. It is still there.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4023fb2-ba5a-11dd-aecd-0000779fd18c.html
By Greg Farrell, Henny Sender and Nicole Bullock in New Yorkand Dave Shellock in London
Published: November 24 2008 19:15 | Last updated: November 25 2008 01:42
Global stock markets rebounded on Monday after the US government moved to stave off a crisis in confidence in Citigroup by providing the beleaguered bank with $20bn in additional capital and arranging $306bn in credit guarantees. The rescue plan forged during a weekend of tense negotiations subjects Citi executive compensation plans to government control and will limit the company’s common stock dividend to no more than 1 cent a quarter for the next three years.
But the proposals quickly drew criticism from Washington lawmakers who said their constituents were suffering from “bail-out fatigue” and pushed the Bush administration to provide more help for homeowners.
Citi shares, for example, rose 58 per cent to $5.95 but were still off more than 50 per cent since the start of the month, underscoring continuing doubts about the company and persistent tension in the credit markets.
Citigroup is a symptom of the real affliction, which is a combination of housing, the mortgage market and the overall economy,” said Greg Peters, head of global fixed income research at Morgan Stanley. “Stabilising Citigroup is a removal of a near- term downward catalyst, but it doesn’t change the issues that the market is wrestling with.”
Analysts said the federal action reflected concerns Citi was “too big to fail” – as Vikram Pandit, Citigroup chief executive, suggested when he told employees “this was about the US financial system and the banking system”.
Under the plan, the Treasury will buy $20bn in preferred shares in Citi, which will pay the government annual dividends of 8 per cent. The new shares are in addition to the $25bn in preferred shares already owned by the government. The deal also includes guarantees for $306bn in domestic assets, including residential and commercial mortgages, leveraged loans and auction-rate securities. Citi’s credit card business is not covered.
Citi, which has dedicated about $8bn in reserves to cover assets in the portfolio, agreed to shoulder an additional $29bn in losses on its own. The government will take 90 per cent of any losses on the remaining $269bn in assets, with Citi absorbing 10 per cent.
Regulators considered more aggressive action, even discussing plans to buy common shares of Citi in the open market to “squeeze” short sellers, who bet on the company’s decline, participants in the talks say. The proposal – which recalls strategies employed by central bankers in the past – was rejected.
Citi, which has dedicated about $8bn in reserves to cover assets in the portfolio, agreed to shoulder an additional $29bn in losses on its own. The government will take 90 per cent of any losses on the remaining $269bn in assets, with Citi absorbing 10 per cent.
Regulators considered more aggressive action, even discussing plans to buy common shares of Citi in the open market to “squeeze” short sellers, who bet on the company’s decline, participants in the talks say. The proposal – which recalls strategies employed by central bankers in the past – was rejected.
Citi’s stock – which had plunged to $3.77 on Friday after a five-day decline that threatened what had recently been the world’s premier financial institution – closed up 58 per cent at $5.95
Tyler,
Here's a post idea for ya...get Lady Sender on the phone and ask what strategies they were referring to....
wow. they all need to be sent back to hell.
central bankers = criminal scum
Unrelated.
More government recalls. Today the government wants you to return all of your window treatments(window blinds).
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10073.html
http://www.recalls.gov
Bring it all back so .gov can fill the landfills and replace the POS that you bought with a new POS.
To paraphrase Bush, "You can fool half of the people half the time and those are the ones that you need to concentrate on."
We are fortunate that Bush II is no longer in office because he believed in Christ as his savior and his faith in Biblical rhetoric purportedly guided his policies.
However, the mishmash of Biblical writings can be interpreted many ways. Here follows John speaking upon Godman and the Fed:
1 John 2:10-11
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
"He who loves his brother abides in the light" and illumination of the discount window is what enables a person to invest in the dark. Light contrasts to dark pools, blindness, HFT, and ignorance, which result in stumbling or losses to the many. Illumination indicates understanding and the ability to produce solutions to the TARP provider. The difficult part is not Leighing ourselves out in sacrifice to express liquidity. If we fail to do this, we may never see long term solutions to our financial problems.
Amen and pass the gravy.
Yeah, its time the Fed gets audited. And while theyre at it, maybe someone can come up with an explanation as to what happened to $2.3T tax payer dollars that went missing back in 2001. Enough is enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A&feature=related
Fucking crooks.
what happens, when it is revealed, that the fed is BK ?
The purloined letter...misdeeds are best hidden right in the open where the "not crimes" are displayed for all to see. Ben will be re=appointed, there's just not near enough noise about this, and the MSM is REALLY pushing the year end windup routine, TARP's done, healthcare done, financial regulation done - are you tin hat ZHers still at that old news? Get over it, you crybabies. Wahhhh.
If they just keep saying it, it will be so. "How can you say there is work undone, or crimes unpunished, when we've been saying for days now that is simply not so?"
see how we are
Bernanke's such an asshole. Check out the way he condescendingly repeats his "thesis" about the varied uses for gold. What a douche.
I would like to touch on a few of Ben's answers, but before I do, the tone of Ben's answers and the words used, essentially are:
Congress gave the FED the monetary and money creation power in the 1913 legislation, and unless you change this, I can do what ever I want as long as it looks plausible in the context of economic theory. Not only do I control the nation's money, but I can put forth any plausible policy I wish without prior approval from congress. My job is not to protect the nations wealth or the tax payer, my job is what I say it is, and if you don't like this, Mr. Congressman, you can try and fund your next pork project through a telethon or hold out a cup in public.
So who has the power? The FED. Congressman, either change this situation, or get used to it.
----------
In reference to question on debt to GDP:
Ben knows that to be effective in addressing the real needs of the nation, monetary and fiscal policy should be centralized. Here again he is not concerned about the health of the US. His policies support the Banks. Ben knows that he will eventually need to directly address our debt, but he makes no mention of entitlement outlays, and completely plays down what happens to yields if we cannot sell debt. Not a word on this. His answer is a carefully crafted dance of deceit.
The separation of fiscal and monetary policy in the US, is the laughing stock of the world. How can you possible have sound money when these activities are not coordinated for the betterment of the people? Well you can't.
Mark Beck
I read the whole thing. This Bernanke guy is a piece of work, a real prevaricator. He thinks Japan dragged its feet, we're on the ball and won't repeat those mistakes. He doesn't think there is an obvious equity bubble. Debt-to-equity at 350%? Not his problem, besides it's really only 220% or something like that. Did we know about foreign banks recieving AIG bailout money? Well, AIG was a global company, ya know. All those dumb things he's said in the past? Hey, things changed. Why let Lehman go, but keep AIG? Bad timing, don't ya know.
I'd like to get my hands of the POS staffer or in-house legal counsel that wrote these responses and shove that person right up Ben-Ben's wazoo.
Incredible. The "collapse of the credit boom", which he was instumental in creating, "was the principal cause of the financial crisis", and "the severity of the feedback effects between the financial sector and the real economy were not fully understood by regulators or investors, either here or abroad. Our failure to anticipate the full severity of the crisis...."
So we are going to solve it by creating another credit boom, forgive and reward those who trespassed against the taxpayer, and now that we more fully understand the feedback effects between the financial sector and the real economy, we are not going to do anything meaningful about it, so that when it happens again, we will fail to anticipate the full severity of that new crisis, too. A fireman without a fire is like a banker without a bonus; just plain against the laws of nature.
Oh yes, and you may not know it, but our real job, and the way we should be judged, is in how effectively we can contain all these problems of our own making and which we will forever fail to anticipate. That stuff about being responsible for maintaining the value of the currency and ensuring steady employment for the workforce and stable price levels is just for public consumption. I mean, we're just a wee bit busy to worry about that sort of stuff, don't you think?
Oh, please don't keep asking about bonuses (Question 42) because I am tired of dodging the issue. And frankly, how much is too much for people "who saved the world"? You would do well to ask yourself that question during this season of giving. And speaking of the Holiday Season...if you would all dress a little less ostentatiously, and put away all that jewelry, the price of gold would not be skyrocketing, damn it. You're scaring the children!
# 50, the author's # 15. he thinks its the first time this question has been asked / answered. it isn't. same answer, over and over. the answer is, in fact, plain as day yet no one sees it.
uncle ben says, as easy al did, that the "Fed" has no hand in such activities.
NEVER has it been claimed by ben / al that they don't know of or aren't aware of (intimately so) such machinations. all that they ever say is that the Fed is not involved. well, no shit. the problem is that the interviewer, invariably, does not know the subject well enough and does not ask the right question / does not phrase it the appropriate way to force a funneled response.
Your any quote in a storm approach to have anyone support your ideas is a losing proposition. Youse guys may know finance but you know bupkis about politics.
Has anyone asked the question: How are banks like Citi paying off their TARP loans? Answer: they are borrowing the money form the Fed instead. Why? Because it gets them out from under the salary/bonus restrictions. The Fed does not want you to know this.