This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Treasury's Deceit Exposed By This Ballsy Government Official
Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
Do you remember the $700 billion bailout of the financial system in 2008?
It seems these days that most investors do not. People are partying like it’s 1929… as if all the issues and challenges that plagued the banking sector just a few years ago have miraculously vanished.
This thinking is absurd, and even a casual glance at the balance sheets of so many banks in the West shows objectively that the entire system is still precariously leveraged, undercapitalized, and illiquid.
In the wake of the bailout, Congress created a special position to oversee how the funds were spent. Like anything else in government, they used an unnecessarily long name followed by a catchy acronym –
Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP.
(The first SIGTARP was a former federal prosecutor who had previously indicted 50 leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia… just the right man to keep a watchful eye on bankers.)
SIGTARP just released its quarterly report to Congress… and it’s scatching, suggesting that “the toxic corporate culture that led up to the crisis and TARP has not sufficiently changed.”
There are some real zingers in the 518 page report, including:
- “[F]raudulent bankers. . . sought TARP bailout dollars to have taxpayers fill in the holes on their fraud-riddled books.”
- “Some bankers cultivated a culture of self dealing, criminally concealing that the bank was funding their luxury lifestyles, believing they were entitled to the finest money could buy. . .”
- “They were trusted to exercise good judgment and make sound decisions. However, they abused that trust. Many times they abused that trust for their own personal benefit.”
Moreover, the report calls into question the Treasury Department’s administration of the bailout.
For example, many banks have been delinquent in making TARP payments, or payments to one of TARP’s sub-programs.
Yet while many banks are delinquent by 1-2 quarters, according to the report, roughly 3% of the banks who received funds under the Community Development Capital Initiative are more than –two years– behind in their payments.
Yet the Treasury Department has done nothing to enforce terms on behalf of taxpayers.
Most alarmingly, though, the report throws a giant red flag on the Treasury Department’s deceit.
In 2011, the report states, 137 banks took in billions of dollars of funding from the Treasury under the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF). They then used those funds to repay their TARP loans.
In other words, they repaid taxpayer money with more taxpayer money.
But the Treasury Department still reported that TARP was being repaid, suggesting in a May 2013 press release: “Taxpayers have already earned a significant profit from TARP’s bank programs.”
Total BS, says the report.
SIGTARP writes that “Treasury should not. . . call these funds “repayments” or “recoveries”. Treasury owes taxpayers fundamental, clear, and accurate transparency and reporting on monies actually repaid.”
Something tells me this woman isn’t going to have a particularly long career in government.
And given the Obama’s administration’s track record against whistleblowers, SIGTARP had better start booking her flight to Moscow. Or better yet, marry a Brazilian.
»
- 15279 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Not to nitpick but didn't the actual amount end up being closer to $820 billion? Also, wasn't this also sold to the american people that a significant amount would be used to update our crumbling infrastructure?
I know you can tell the age of a horse by looking at his teeth, but a squirreleo?
More brass than 99.999% of the men in .gov.
She should team up with Brooksley Born, Catherine Austin Fitts and Janet Tavakoli to rip the .gov and banking mob to shreds.
How about a TV series.. “Ron Paul’s” Angels?
Well I don't know if she reads Zero Hedge, but I just want to say THANK YOU, Christy L. Romero, for risking everything and trying to make things better. Hopefully one day all these criminals will get the justice they deserve.
Let me guess the squids will peek into Romero's bedroom and find some skeletons, it will be reported to the NYT, and she will get the Petreaus or Palin treatment. I guess the Palin treatment is preferable since she is female.
For those that do not know Palin was exposed for having sex with Glen Rice back when she was a reporter.
Did you say she was "exposed" and reported to the NYT? WTF?
That squirrel has no penis. Is the squirel related to Obama?
They should also reach out to Carmen Segarra..
I read Simon's thingy twice, trying find the name of the woman whose babies I want to have, and didn't find it. Thanks, SMG.
And Ellen H. Brown.
That squirrel is nuttier than his poo.
Armed like that, I'm sure he rules the treetops in his neighborhood.
If by infrastructure you mean network connections between the stock exchanges and major trading houses than yes.
If you mean road and bridges and water lines and the power grid than no.
The entire welfare state infrastructure of the West is going bankrupt. The whole matrix was built on borrowed money. So now we need the bankers to sustain this unsustainable system.
No. The real number lent out by the FED was over $11T.
The $700B TARP was peanuts...
exactly right. not hard to pay off tarp when the other hand that feeds you is handing you over tens of trillions
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_698.pdf
$29,000,000,000,000 (and counting): A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient
First, an important article which should start a trend throughout the US of A!
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/kshama-sawant-return-of-the-alternative/Content?oid=18085005
Second, nitpicker notadouche, the number is really $.9 trillion, which, when added to the amount (according to the response to the FOIA filed by the Bloomberg journalist who has since passed this plane of existence) which the Federal Reserve pumped out worldwide between 2007 to 2009, $16.1 trillion, equals $17 trillion, which was the exact estimate of losses in equity to American households between 2007 to 2009, according to former Treasury economist dude, Alan Kreuger.
Interesting how those numbers match, huh?
Re: Not to nitpick but didn't the actual amount end up being closer to $820 billion?
Yeah, but - really - whoz counting?
Notadouche is confusing the $700 billion TARP bailout (which was rejected by the House, went to the Senate and came back larded up to more than $800 billion) with Obama's ARRA Spendulus bill which totaled $831 billion.
Between them, Congress squandered more than $1.5 trillion, but that was peanuts compared to the approx $17 trillion in loans, gifts and other bailouts provided by the Fed to Too Big To Jail banks. Before he quit as SIGTARP, Barofsky said the ultimate tally could exceed $27 trillion.
That sounds right to me. It's not the first time I've been dazed and confused and I can promise it won't be the last. With each passing day I seem to be more befuddled by this new fangled world.
"In my day we were stupid and we liked it" Dana Carvey's old man bit from SNL is about as accurate a description of me as I have ever seen.
I'll grant you that stupidity can be a lot of fun, but these days it's an expensive hobby.
I sense a Mercedes exploding in a DC suburb very soon.
I don't know, suicide is less expensive...I'll bet she's really depressed and.......
Probably clumsy too, prone to falling in the shower, down stairs, in front of buses... Takes a lot of guts to tell the truth and put your life on the line in the current environment. Guts, or naiveté.
Nah, read the actual executive summary, not the Simon Black rendition... She's going after the small fish and sacrificial lambs. If she graduates to real bankers and crimes a bit more sophisticated than making bad loans to your buddies or taking the bank's cash overseas with you... then, yeah, she should cover her six. Until then she's a definite step up from Zero's usual collection of incompetent two-bagger bull dykes (and if she lost 10lbs, she'd also have to cover her ass, albeit for slightly different reason - see that horny squirrel with the big balls...
Christy L Romero
Or someone getting shot with a SIGTARP P226.
why would the bankers' change their way? they're now sitting on $3 trillion in excess reserves.
Indeed.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/
Let me be clear,
roll the motherfucking guillotines.
Absolutely nothing will change otherwise.
How many is a Brazillion?
A brazilion is the count of all ur pubic hairs getting ripped out at once...
The shriek of a thousand curls....
The banks are our government; the new Lords and Ladies of the despotic kleptoligarchy.
Branches of government are a very expensive theater with richly paid actors.
This Woman should get the hell out of Dodge before a mysterious accident befalls her.
Lord and Lady Douchebag
Eb, history is replete with examples where people warn of dire consequences and are summarily ignored or dismissed.
President Roosevelt ignored his ambassador William Dodd repeatedly when he described the atrocities committed by the Nazis. He accurately predicted the aggression against Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia. History is not kind to him.
Jacques Necker warned Louis XVI of the dire conditions the French peasantry were suffering. He proposed an elimination of regressive taxation. He was fired. I wondered if Louis thought of him as the guillitine's blade came crashing down.
There are many today that are shouting from the roof tops warning us of disasters that will befall us if we continue down this path. If history is any teacher, they will be ignored as well. I can only hope there is no Reign of Terror awaiting us.
Miffed;-)
Treasury is taking a $10 Billion dump on its GM shares too
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/10/29/us-treasury-reports-9-7b-loss-gm-shares/
i bet the elite do some freaky sht on halloween. really starting to think kubrick was trying to tell us something in his last film.
Someone needs to show this article to every rank in the DoD and ICs to ask them where they lost there's!
"Something tells me this woman isn’t going to have a particularly long career in government."...
No and neither did "Joan of Arc", but we wouldn't have heard about either of them if they didn't have the metal and soul to begin with.
This is what separates them from the rest!
P.S.
Might as well throw in Sherry Peel Jackson, April Gallop and Sibel Edmonds to this list of women that have more testosterone that the majority of males in this Country lack.
My god, this man is dead, Jim.
Way fucking dead. He best be calling Snowden for some resume tips to put out on the Russian equivalent of Monster.com
Hey, that's the Fark squirrel. And speaking of that, we're farked for sure.
I haven't seen tanks on the street. I thought they were holding up their end of the bargain.
is this real?
The most incredible thing about TARP was that they could have given relief to the mortgagees/homeowners which would have also improved the bankster's balance sheets. However they gave the cash exclusively to the banksters. That leaves the banksters in a position to also take title to real property as the mortgagees default. If it weren't so tragic, it would be funny. And don't forget they stole the deposits of the people to create the 'loans' in the first place.
Now I am not saying printing money is a good thing for anyone, but they choose to do it and bail out the banksters exclusively.
Got guillotines?!
Exactly. They could have saved MILLIONS of homeowners and just flat GIVEN them their homes. OR they could give 400 guys 26 TRILLION dollars. Whikle just GIVING homeowners their homes would be frownd upon by the Sheeple, giving 400 guys 26 trillion was no problem. Then they were made whole on all their crap, and proceeded to throw the people that bailed them out, out of their homes. I guess they really appreciated all the sheeple did for them. HANG THEM
Let's work across the aisle... reach consesnus... deport BOTH Bush and Obongo... after a public flogging and a tar and feather party. All their cabinet members are grandfathered into that deal too. One addendum allowed... add in Hillaroid. Can DO??
hank paulson will be exempt from prosecution, much less have his name dragged threw the mud, oh he is never mentioned my bad.
Didn't you see the HBO special where Stuttering Hank is a HERO!! He cried because he was so concerned about the American Sheeple. He's trying to help us. Now THAT was an AMAZING piece of propaganda. really exceptional.
Re: Stuttering Hank
Haven't the job creators suffered enough? I mean, I think it's time to just forgive and forget on this issue.
i challenge anyone to actually locate this brave woman for a quote...she has been disappeared.
i'm sure NSA has already ereased most references to this article, which never happened.
I hope someone, anyone, has the nuts to stand up and defend this SIGTARP woman for actually publishing the TRUTH!
I'm SHOCKED!! SHOCKED!! Our govt and banksters stealing from us???!! Say it ain't so. Did Oboner know anything about this? I KNOW NUUUTTTHHHIIINNGG!!! NUTHING!!! At least our Puppident is clean, he knew nothing.
Let me fill in some blanks regarding WHO some of the unamed crooks are. As if we don't already know.
Jamie (I'm a Crook) Dimon
Lloyd (I'm a Piece of Shit) Blankfein
Tim (I'm a Midget) Geithner
Hank (I suck Cock) Paulson
Ben (Bootlicker) Berfuckhead
John (Everyone hates me) Mack
John (I shit through Gold) Thune
Ken (I'm a dumb fuck) Lewis
Blythe (I suck Satan's cock) Masters
feel free to add anyone else
"But the Treasury Department still reported that TARP was being repaid, suggesting in a May 2013 press release: “Taxpayers have already earned a significant profit from TARP’s bank programs.”
Total BS, says the report."
The government has borrowed 6 trillion dollars to create the illusion that the banks have repaid TARP and earned a significant profit for the government.
Re; The government has borrowed 6 trillion dollars to give the illusion that the banks have repaid TARP and earned a significant profit for the government.
Ya gotta hand it to these job creators they sure know now to run a scam on the dumbasses.
Running a scam on the mass of Americans is not all that difficult as long as the majority remain drunk, sedated and distracted with iCrap.
With all of this QE, this $85 Billion of quantitative easing pumped every month through open funnels to the financials, keeping interest rates low at 1 to 1 1/2% or less while propping up Wall Street equities and commissions while extracting the value from the economy, “companies [are]looking to raise money through the debt markets, and the bankers [are] egging them on.”
Says David Gelles at Deal Maker, “it seems no sum is too large,” reporting on Sept 11, 2013, that:
Just more evidence that the bottom will fall out of the market if the threat of virtually free money is taken away from Wall Street's financial addicts – just another scenario of the fraud and injustice administered by the Federal Reserve's banking families such as Goldman Sachs.
As Ben Stein said in 2007: "HERE is a query, as we used to say in law school: Should Henry M. Paulson Jr., who formerly ran a firm that engaged in this kind of conduct, be serving as Treasury secretary? Should there not be some inquiry into what the invisible government of Goldman (and the rest of Wall Street) did to create this disaster, which has caught up with some Wall Street firms but not the nimble Goldman?”…
“From what I have observed over the years, Goldman has a fascinating culture. It is sort of like what I imagine the culture of the K.G.B. to be.” (The New York Times, Sunday, December 2, 2007)
“In the meantime,” hitting the nail on the head, Zero Hedge wrote in 2010, “Goldman et al will continue to make record profits, representing an ever increasing portion of total S&P Net Income, thanks only to the yield curve, its monopoly in the fixed income derivative market, and its comprehensive REDI suite which every hedge fund manager uses and signs off on some very peculiar ‘information sharing’ waivers. Yet who cares what happens in 2020: by then America will certainly be insolvent.”
Sure enough, a 2008-insolvent Goldman Sachs along with Visa and Nike was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, effective September 23, 2013. Out: Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America and Alcoa.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/criminal-charges-next-barofsky-coordinate-doj-see-if-us-taxpayers-were-victims-goldman-fraud
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/business/02every.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0
Beware of record setting bonuses that will be paid out by verizon in spring 2014. The greed factor has never been more apparent and truly ugly.
Oh please, I call BS on this one. Look at the report and you shall see that all they did was target a few small fish, none of the TBTFs is targeted. For example, the Vampire Squid is mentioned once in a table in the Appendix on page 368. Arguably the greatest financial fraud in the history of the planet and they avoid any of the TBTFs that were the principal "private" side of the equation fueling the fraud. Does the NSA have compromising pictures on Black and this SIGTARP tool?
Telling it like it is is verboten! Suspicious plane crash coming in 3... 2... 1.
Read it.. the squid ain't even on there. calls out the little boys.
to the author: do you remember the 500 billion pulled in one trading day from MM funds? who how why never answered...paging congressman er excongressman kanjorski...