This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Another big month at Geithner’s whorehouse bank

Submitted by Bruce Krasting on 09/27/2011 08:07 -0400

The Federal Financing Bank (FFB) has released its August report. This is the bank that has provided the $500mm to Solyndra. Under normal conditions this monthly report would go unnoticed (except by folks like me). This time might be different. I would expect that a few Republicans are going to jump all over this. They should. The FFB is continuing to lend taxpayer money with virtually no oversight.

From the report:

Net holdings of government-guaranteed loans increased by $757.4 million.

Another ¾ of a billion out the door. Who got this money? Answer: The same characters that have gotten the "Free Money" since O/Timmy G. took control. The breakdown of the DOE advances and the pricing:

At the top of the list is a modest $3mm to our pals at Solyndra. Note that this was done on 7/15; just six-weeks before the lights went out at SOL. How about the % rate? 0.89%. We will never see a dime of the interest or principal on this advance. Nothing short of a joke; a bad one at that.

There was a total of $89,500,000 of other new loans to solar related projects. The DOE guaranteed loans now total a tidy $6 billion. That number will surely rise next month.

Ford gets another $163 million. Just what is it we are doing with Ford that requires this much money?

Unrelated to the DOE and the solar loans are the HOPE NOW BONDS. This is the money that will be used to facilitate a mortgage ReFi that I anticipate a formal announcement on in a matter of days. Note that the $491mm was rolled over at a rate of 0.01%. Nearly half a billion dollars is outstanding. The cost is only $4,100 per month.

The Federal Reserve has recently announced that it will be increasing its surveillance of blogs. (They are already doing this in a big way) See FTAlphaville and Zero Hedge.

I have no doubt but that the Treasury Department is already doing the same. I have a message for those folks who are looking at the alternative press and the information they keep coming up with.

You’re Not Watching Us. We’re Watching You!

- advertisements -

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:28 | 1714597 use-ta-be-rich

"...increasing its surveillance of blogs" 50% of the poulation is aware, the other 50% ? (who cares). So now they want to know what the first 50% are reading....ahhhh the answer is?..."THE TRUTH"

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:27 | 1714595 lynnybee

i'm tired of being 'messed with' ......... i've got news for them ........ make my day, i'm damn old & damn angry.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:17 | 1714553 Husk-Erzulie

Well... It's Hudson River School.

OT question/ request for Bruce readers. I have seen it stated a number of times in ZH comments that "No fiat currency has ever survived over 50 years" and that death by hyper infaltion is most common etc. Can anyone in the community link a primary source for this assertion? Or alternately an article or paper with citations? This is powerful stuff but without sources it's weak sauce. I would like to be able to point this out to some Krugman devotees I know but with some authoritative backup. TYVM. And Bruce, thanks for your work. :-)

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 17:09 | 1716299 SilverRhino

Some links to get you started on your own research.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/editorial.php?page=articles/thousand-pictures-worth-one-word&ppref=ZHB207ED0711A

The average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years, with the shortest life span being one month. Founded in 1694, the British pound Sterling is the oldest fiat currency in existence. At a ripe old age of 317 years it must be considered a highly successful fiat currency. However, success is relative. The British pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver, so it’s worth less than 1/200 or 0.5% of its original value. In other words, the most successful long standing currency in existence has lost 99.5% of its value.

http://kwaves.com/fiat.htm : History of currency / money in the United States (yes the two terms are different)

http://www.rapidtrends.com/examples-of-fiat-money-failures-throughout-history-could-the-us-repeat-this/

http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/

http://elevationsgroupreviews.com/collapse-of-modern-financial-system/the-inevitability-of-fiat-currency-collapse/ : 7 steps of currency collapse.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:24 | 1714734 Cthonic

Alternatively, you can ask your doubters to name even one that has survived that long with the bulk of its purchasing power intact. The failures are too numerous to list, though here are the more historically prominent examples:

jiaozi, chao, colonial bills of credit, the continental, french assignats, greenbacks, weimar marks, soviet ruble, argentine austral, yugoslavian dinar, zimbabwean dollar, the federal reserve note.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:39 | 1714822 Husk-Erzulie

Thank you both (Blankcheck, Cthonic [great handle btw])

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:47 | 1714646 Kayman

Husk-Erzulie

"No fiat currency has ever survived over 50 years" and that death by hyper infaltion is most common etc.

I don't know who made the claim, but there is plenty of historical evidence of currency debasement going back to coinage. It is just that paper money and now, electronic money is so cheap to produce.

However, contrary to Bernanke and Greenspan, there is a cost to money printing and we are paying it now. Mal-investment and malaise.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:28 | 1714783 Lord Blankcheck

www.martinarmstrong.org

check out the Immediate Outlook from 9-25

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:37 | 1715192 tip e. canoe

thanks for the reminder to read -- Martin rocks it as usual. great lines :

"The markets ALWAYS move against the majority BECAUSE that is the fuel that runs the engine."

"So when I say this is the COLLAPSE OF SOCIALISM, it is really the collapse of this arrogant strain of economics that crowned government with the power to borrow perpetually, manipulate what is not there, and to create utopia without ever considering just perhaps the whole is not the sum of the parts, but a dynamic interconnected synergy that Adam Smith called, the INVISBLE HAND(S) ."

"You cannot force capital to flow to unprofitable regions any more than you can force water to flow up instead of down. "

hudson river school indeed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Niagara_Falls_...

p.s. nice remix on the painting bk, yours? edit: sorry just saw you answered it upthread.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:24 | 1714578 Translational Lift

Hudson River School with video cameras..............

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 12:23 | 1715176 Escapeclaws

Actually, I think this painting is from the Potomac River School whose origins are in Fairfax, Va if memory serves.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:03 | 1714496 JOYFUL

By mentioning Ford you have inadvertantly hit the nail on the head...allowing ZH'ers to take a time tunnel trip back to the twenties and

REALIZE

...it was Henry Fords' resolute opposition to his era's TPTB which induced the {what we will o so politely call} 'banksters' of his day to begin the campaign of financial and social intimidation which resulted in his and his inheritors' acquiescence to the systemic takeover of America's productive engines by the parasite class.

Those same oligarchs who put their ill gotten spoils into funding Lev Bernstein's(aka Osama Bin, er, sorry, Leon Trotsky) transcontinental boat/train trip back to the Motherland...(pls research Webster Tarpley's oeuvre for details of Wall Street's multiple betrayals of your patrimony)

in the cause of the Fatherland...and so on and so forth...skip past two world wars and ancillary bleedings of American farmboy fodder....to present day bailout/socialisations of previously impervious private American enterprises....read auto industry el al...

time is clearly cyclical...nothin new under the sun...as history is clearly dialectical...if yu be materialistical enough!

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:35 | 1715695 tip e. canoe

http://hempcar.org/ford.shtml

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:41 | 1715031 tired1

There are interesting financial links to the armament of Japan at the same time - same 'people'. The purpose was to release the dogs of war upon Russia and China.

BTW, there are still many Russians who haven't forgotten what was done to them by NY money and the Chinese havn't forgotten the Opium Wars.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 13:05 | 1715331 john39

Sassoon family big in the opium wars... no shock if you research their lineage. Americans also are ignornant to the role that the chosen ones played in the slave trade. some things never change.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:14 | 1714740 adr

Henry Ford said "beware the American Jew". The bankers tried to destroy him and Ford was the last of the big American car companies to go public. Ford didn't trust the stock market for good reason. Sadly Ford went public and the company has gone downhill ever since.

When someone tells me Ford is good because they didn't take government money I laugh. I actually printed out the last list to show my Ford man uncle that yes they do take government money. Ford has been the dirtiest of all.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:56 | 1715787 CompassionateFascist

Ford did not say "beware the AMERICAN Jew"; he was wiser than that. he said: "beware the INTERNATIONAL Jew".

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:04 | 1714920 Clark Bent

I regret having that illusion shattered. I was holding out for one American car company to not be dirty. Disappointing.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 12:15 | 1715149 DoChenRollingBearing

Yes, that disappoints me too that Ford is taking dirty money.

How about giving Korean cars a shot?

(sort of talking my book here as I want the Korean bearing manufacturers to do extra well!)

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:02 | 1714492 Iam Rich

I am sure with Ford it is some "investment" in green car technology. What's the new word I learned from Solyndra...that's it, a Fab1/Fab2 facility. Not that I can figure out what you'd do with 160MM.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:01 | 1714491 mirac

Maybe time to start watching F for a short? Or they just got lucky by finding a very cheap source of funding instead of going to the bond market or bank?

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:57 | 1714481 SokPOTUS

I think it's great that they're watching. Maybe they'll learn something.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:49 | 1714455 mark mchugh

You rock, Bruce!

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:12 | 1714535 Joshua Falken

When is America going to wake up that the Federal Reserve System is a privately owned institution and NOT a government agency.

Bernanke works for the shareholders of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks (which comprise US and European Finance Houses) NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

The money they are sequestering is yours

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:25 | 1715651 bigkahuna

America's heads are in America's asses from cradle to grave. We might be awake, but until we reach a tipping point of distributing awareness to those who are not thinking (an oxymoron) then we all are along for the ride. It takes some degree of psychological hardening to get used to this...we just have to keep waking people up--no matter how hard the task is--or we are gonna go down like a bunch of chumps.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:48 | 1714448 Poule Mouillee

Maybe I'm not looking close enough, but I can't find any graffiti on that camera post. What gives?

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:59 | 1714484 Bruce Krasting

This is a Banksy. He is the most well know graffiti artist. I copy/use his stuff all the time.

He doctored up a mock-up of the original painting with the cameras. Then he hung it in a museum to watch when people walked by and wondered what it was about.

Question: Can anyone tell me/us who did the original oil? I think it is famous, but can't place the artist.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 21:01 | 1716975 Narcolepzzzzzz

Bruce

I don't think this was done from a famous painting. It's listed as 'Original artist unknown' in Wall and Piece.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 17:23 | 1716288 NoClueSneaker

Something dutch, round 1630 ... I'll take a look

( edit )

Can't pinpoint . But looks as Jacob von Ruisdael ... lot of them and prolific.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jacob-van-ruisdael

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:26 | 1714923 citta vritti

Constable

http://www.google.com/search?q=constable&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd...

edit:

well. looks like Constable, but on further checking, it's different from the picture in the above Google search link (top right of first row, on my screen), and I didn't see it on the John-Constable.org webpage, so I withdraw the suggestion. Lot of landscape painters out there.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:41 | 1714420 DavosSherman

Geithner & Bernanke are fucking morons. That is all there is to it. We can't fix too much debt, which is the fucking problems that these assclowns will never comprehend, with more debt without a default or a simple outright revaluation of the currency.

Explicit - revalue the currency. Get it over with and lets move the fuck on.

Implicit - print to devalue (an they will lose control, even their farts come out as diarrhea on society's collective underwear - you see it when you go to the grocery store. 3% inflation my fucking ass!) Just wait until the system snaps and we have Zimbabwe hyperinflation.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:44 | 1714434 Bruce Krasting

Careful. "THEY" are watching you.

Fuck em....

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 15:35 | 1715943 DaveyJones

geithner, whorehouse, bank - synonym soup

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 12:11 | 1715131 DoChenRollingBearing

@ BK

Yes, "They" are. I have a blog too, so I guess "They" are watching me as well.

But, Bruce, you are doing such EXCELLENT work re digging up thievery, that you no doubt are being watched. Keep up the great work ! And, yes, Fuck 'em...

Maybe keep a 9 mm or bigger at hand...

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:03 | 1714708 Gene Parmesan

Love the closing message, Bruce. We wear the pants (if and when we want to), not them.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 15:48 | 1716014 DaveyJones

dydan

http://dydan.rutgers.edu/research.html

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:32 | 1714612 DavosSherman

Yup, those 2 assclowns (Geithner and Bernanke) just gave me a down vote each :)

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:37 | 1715022 sskid

psychopaths bitchez

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 14:09 | 1715587 bigkahuna

FUCK EM' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:33 | 1714396 Edward Fiatski

HOPE bonds? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 15:17 | 1715869 NotApplicable

Help Obama Practice Economics?

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:01 | 1714698 metastar

Ah, ... The cruel futility of hope (as in "gee, I hope they don't rob me again").

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 11:07 | 1714935 Clark Bent

My favorite slogan for bumper sticker: "2011 America, where the banks rob you!" Can't remember where I read that, somebody deserves credit.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 15:19 | 1715877 NotApplicable

Here's one. Too bad they used Madoff instead of Blankenfiend, or Timmah, or even Benron.

http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/2011/08/18/demotivational-posters...

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 08:31 | 1714385 LawsofPhysics

Well this should get interesting. A mexican standoff comes to mind.

Any idea on how the Fed is going to distribute the 400 billion in new stimulus. Is this all going to Europe? As always I appreciate you thoughts on this Bruce. Personally a see another suckers rally, but what do I know, even the Fed won't fight the Fed any more.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:10 | 1714522 Withdrawn Sanction

"Any idea on how the Fed is going to distribute the 400 billion in new stimulus."

They're just substituting long-bonds for short ones in the Fed portfolio. Not net change in Fed's BS, just a YC flattening. It's supposed to lower the cost of LT credit, but the problem is not the PRICE of credit, but its excessive QUANTITY. It is not stimulative.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 10:14 | 1714744 LawsofPhysics

Excellent, so another little bump for those holding TIPS and long bonds, right before they go bidless and the sheep are fleeced again.

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 13:27 | 1715404 Panafrican Funk...