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Geithner Warned S&P Chairman US Would Retaliate For Downgrade
Who can forget Tim Geithner's historic interview from April 2011, in which he said:
Peter Barnes “Is there a risk that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating? Yes or no?”
Geithner’s response: “No risk of that.”
“No risk?” Barnes asked.
“No risk,” Geithner said.
Considering that the US was downgraded by S&P just 4 months later, one person who certainly will never forget his idiotic preannouncement, is the former Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner. And being the sore loser that everyone suspected he was (although one hopes his recent well-paid move to Warburg Pincus will help soothe his sensitivity) it will come as no surprise that Geithner told the Chairman of embattled rating agency Standard & Poor's, that its downgrade of the US from AAA to AA+ "would be met by a response."
From Bloomberg:
S&P filed a declaration of McGraw yesterday in federal court in Santa Ana, California, as part of a request to force the U.S. to hand over potential evidence the company says will support its claim that the government filed a fraud lawsuit against it last year in retaliation for its downgrade of the U.S. debt two years earlier.
In his court statement, McGraw said Geithner called him on Aug. 8, 2011, after S&P was the only credit ratings company to downgrade the U.S. debt. Geithner, McGraw said, told him that S&P would be held accountable for the downgrade. Government officials have said the downgrade was based on an error by S&P.
“S&P’s conduct would be looked at very carefully,” Geithner told McGraw according to the filing. “Such behavior would not occur, he said, without a response from the government.”
The Justice Department last year accused S&P of lying about its ratings being free of conflicts of interest and may seek as much as $5 billion in civil penalties. The government alleged in its Feb. 4, 2013, complaint that S&P knowingly downplayed the risk on securities before the credit crisis to win business from investment banks seeking the highest possible ratings to help sell the instruments.
None of this somces as a surprise, and it has been well-known for a long time that the only reason the US Department of Injustice targeted only S&P and not Moody's or Fitch for their crisis era ratings of mortgages is precisely due to Geithner's vendetta with S&P. Of course, this kind of selective punishment simply means that nobody else will dare to touch the US rating ever again, or speak badly against the sovereign in a public medium for fears of retaliation.
Naturally, while this means that the credibility of the rating agencies is now non-existent even among the head in the sand groupthink, what is worse is observing the US' slide into the kind of totalitarian, 1st Amendment quashing tactics that worked out so well for all previous fascist regimes.
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.223 rounds are cheap....Just saying.
Edit...... Btw what is somces?
So we can now rule out anyone in DC saying "This is the US -- we're not Argentina!" (Well, at least not without some irony....)
Later in the letter, Geithner reiterated..."Come on S&P. In fascism government and business work TOGETHER! Moody's and Fitch are on board..."
If you want your taxes you can have your taxes
Chicago politics at its finest
What do you want?
Did the Jews invent democracy?
So...?
...and yet the press - in an effort to cement Hillary 2016 - is still nearly wall to wall with some cones placed in the road in fort lee.
Timmy needs to be invited to a White Party and his ass used as a pinata for all those throbbing penises.
Timmah!
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/185667/timmy-rocks-the-mic
So how many S&P execs went to the slammer for false or deceptive ratings?
Nationalize Turbo-Tax!
Jail is for the little people not the bankers or rating agencies they just pay bribes err I mean fines and holder and obama make all the nasty prison sentences go away.
Apparently people have never patted a hungry dog eating a meal... It will bite your hand off, even if you are a friend.
And I quote: “This is the most transparent administration in history,” Prez. Obozo
I cannot believe they would do such a thing. But of course there is that IRS thing where they were kind of going after potential enemies. And there was that GM thing where they were threatening bondholders to go along with the 95% haircut....or else. And then there were those insurance companies who were putting out less than optimistic projections about costs relative to Obamacare that were told to STFU. There were all those guns they sent across the border and then fired the guys who told on them, but that's not retribution. They were just making an example of those who lacked loyalty. And yes there are other instances, but not Timmy. Say it ain't so. I'm simply hurt that I wasn't invited to the MLK/Michelle party celebrating the coup of the Tutsi tribe.
They sure know how to manipulate it. Short on Jews? whaaaaaa wait.
..and, if you want to know who rules over you, just see who you are not allow to criticize....
"The Justice Department last year accused the S&P of lying..."
If that's not the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is.
I haven't missed seeing tiny Timmy's face at all. Why did you have to bring his picture back? YUK!
Fallout among crooked banksters. Oops double negative.
Oh, come on. This is in no way retaliation. Comrade Zero and his lackies don't do retaliation.
Now closing some bridge lanes in Jersey ... that's retaliation. /sarc off
Hi Sean Egan, wherever you are.
Anyone seen Trotskys icepick around?
S&P, sleep with one eye open.
We are Argentina, and it will get alot worse. When this whole system collapses it will implode the US system of governance and law. In fact I see where massive corruption and destitution will be along side enclaves of the rich and powerful to be the norm.
Yes, we have no bananas. But we do have a Banana Republic.
I've already started wearing my underwear on the outside:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV4N2dk0cMk
An anagram for comess? The extra 's' is to denote sarcasm.
If you like your gummint tyranny, uou can keep your gummint tyranny.
Free EGAN-JONES!
Geithner is a sore loser. He should be grateful Billy Crudup portrays him in TBTF
When a person is paid by someone, they do their bidding. If a person does not want to be a bitch, then he shouldn't act like a bitch.
Right out of the Nazi play book.
Or the Communists.
Same thing.
Leftist Totalitarians, all
They're actually pushing fascism at this point.
Considering Gitmo was an option I think they got off light.
who cares
I care... and I would like to squash that fucker if only I could find him. Really did not need to see his rat face first thing this AM. One day he will be sought out and when one of these banksters are hung then just maybe the other rats will run.... FMR
Short of the US being invaded by China and them rounding up all the banksters, this will NEVER happen in my lifetime. Why? Bankers pay for politicians, politicians control the military and police and all their toys. The politicians then protect their mutualistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28biology%29) relationship.
Getting mad about it merely draws attention to oneself. Consider reading Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (http://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Worrying-Start-Living/dp/0671035975/ref=s...), because there is really nothing anyone can do to change it.
Google: cursing fish cafepress
elbow
please pick up your participation ribbon at the short bus, they're waiting for you to leave
"would be met by a response."
The immediate response was that the CEO of S&P, Deven Sharma, was forced to resign:
Deven Sharma (55), Indian-American president of credit rating agency Standard & Poor's, has resigned less than three weeks after his company found itself at the receiving end of the Obama administration's ire following its downgrade of the United States' credit rating from AAA to AA+.
S&P's announcement, that Mr. Sharma would be stepping down immediately and leaving the company at the end of the year, also follows reports last week that the U.S. Justice Department had initiated an investigation into the mortgage securities ratings allocation process at the McGraw-Hill subsidiary. In particular, authorities were said to be examining whether S&P “improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis.”
S&P's downgrade of the U.S.' debt from AAA to AA+ on August 5, based on its perception that the deficit reduction measures agreed by the administration were insufficient to stabilise national debt, saw further market turmoil in its wake as the downgrade triggered a massive global sell-off.
http://www.thehindu.com/business/sp-chief-deven-sharma-resigns/article23...
We have the freest, fairest markets and rating agencies in the world.
The irony is that the downgrade is/was probably good news. It showed there was risk to the QE "system" relative to the reality of how Government actually worked. It certainly got the "shut down crowd" shut up. Obviously the "wind down" crowd is now in full bloom as pretty much every Federal Program save Social Security will now be "commercialized." NASA, the Postal Service, the DOT, the DOE, the DOL, HHS...you name it...most of these folks "work from home" anyways. Some type of system to monitor the highway system will have to be set up...just get rid of "rubber hitting the road" and that will be it for pot hole fixing. Be interesting to see if the private sector can build there own Space Station actually.
drone those bitchezz, you can't downgrade our fiat machine-worked fine for a 100 years.
whats a tril between cronies, hell we make life good for you! all transfers good, really think we can't make good on our promisses?
all the military might says so.
tiiiiiiiiiimmmmmaaa, the man, back in the news-this shit show just never ends w/o more laughs.
jf funny
Let us forget political affiliations. The best argument against the challenger (Romney/Republican in this case) being worthy of the office of the presidency was that he wouldn't/couldn't pummel the incumbent (Obama/Democrats in this case) with the fact that the debt had been downgraded.
The best argument that a college degree is worthless is that the debt downgrade wasn't deemed by the public to be the prime issue. It did happen to make it into the news.
The best argument that the press and government are in the hands of the banks is that the downgrade wasn't at least 5X the size story that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were.
The best metric of how screwed we are as a society is all of the above.
OBTW: f&@k Geithner
OBTW2: this what happens when you let a tax cheat be Treasury Secretary
http://en.dagongcredit.com/
At least Dagong can "tell it like it is" without threat of being sued.
(I'm not a paid endorser)
That's why the shadow rulers love him. He looks like a meek nerd, but behind closed doors he is a criminal mastermind.
Actually he looks like a weasel but your point is well taken.
Criminals lol they are a funny bunch.
Hell we bomb Pakistani weddings for shits and giggles. Just THINK of what we will do to the S&P for such a slight.
Long Hellfires and Short burning banker corpses!
same administration that claims not to know about IRS targeting, or NSA spying..."trust us, we will not misuse the massive amount of information we are collecting."
Now PR, you know the media will give this the same level of coverage as they gave Christie
Confidence comes from a warm and NATURAL feeling inside NEVER from constant announcements that all is great. Trying to manufacture confidence does serious financial damage to those mugs that believe the propaganda -
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-30/guest-post-lets-have-depression...
Thought Egan Jones downgraded too...of course they got hammered by the US govt too. They strong arm a lot of companies.
And it has been made absolutely clear that it would not be tolerated if they'd dare to rate the USA again. Neither down, nor up - they simply have been banned from rating.
I'm mad as hell and i'm going to keep on btfdath!
"Employees of the U.S. National Security Agency spied on "unfaithful" husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends using surveillance technology of the agency, according to a letter from the NSA to a U.S. Senator."
...of which Governors, Congressman, and Senators? Of which political opponents? The government has already PROVEN it has done this with using the IRS against it's oppenents.
Fascist indeed, particularly looking at all the large business in bed with the government.
But....but.....this self promoting asshole (notice his books for sale in the background, a representative with a conflict of interest?) says there has not been 1 instance of abuse of power by the NSA....oh, and we haven't been "attacked" in 12 years.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/01/17/lead-peter-king-on...
Not saying its the same thing, but....I wonder how many official complaints were lodged against Hitler and Stalin? Like we can pass a law against tyranny. Laws ultimately ARE tyranny.
Bwarny Fwank would be in office today if him being a fat oily hairy backed pillow biter hadn't be exposed.
Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!' She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
Including weasels it would seem.
Gone are the days when they would send a common criminal like turbo timmy to a proper abode like Alcatrazz. Instead nowadays he ends up on an island more like this one...
http://realtor.com/international/listing-detail/SANDY-CAY_Man-_-O-_-War-...
Credit Rating agencies are this country's last bastion of honesty and truth in business.
Bwahahahaha! Don't quit yer day job.
hahaha Fake MDB
stop drinking the somces
To tell the truth would be to relegate yourself to the margins, never to be taken seriously again. Truth...its for the muppets who believe the truth actually matters. What matters is what people believe. There is no other explanation for where we find ourselves. Marginalized and speaking out loudly, anonymously.
who cares what that dwarf said? He's out!
I care. I care that the fuckwad got away with all that shit and nary a slap on the wrist.
Yes but I think this is actually more helpful than if they had some token memo written up.
Most know this whole system is rotten to the core. I mean, was anyone actually suprised by this?
I sure as fuck wasnt. This whole thing is rotten. From the dog catcher to the POTUS.
I am now on the side of the common Roman, secretly cheering for the Goths to come.
pods
Lets not forget people, they DID shut down Egan-Jones for having the balls to downgrade them.
S&P played a major roll in the banking crisis, so must be prosecuted for the fraud so it isn't repeated. Geithner's extortion of S&P is a separate matter that should be prosecuted separately. S&P has no standing in that case. The extortion has no bearing on the case against S&P.
Let's not lose sight of the underlying fact that the controlling criminal enterprise here is the U.S. Federal Government.
Everybody else (including S&P) either does what the Feds say or they get punished.
Step out of line and you will be punished.
I disagree. S&P was not forced to rate junk grade MBS AAA.
neither was anyone else.
the issue is selective enforcement.
Simply more confirmation of what we all already knew, specifically, when fraud is the status quo, posession is the law.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ze7c_elvis-costello-possession_music
Say it ain't so....
How the private FED and other big bankers really do things? Threats, extortion, and blackmail using force and coercion with the levers of government, as needed? Gosh, who knew?
Using the DOJ to perform criminal investigations against independent rating agencies that diegn to be honest while consciously avoiding criminal prosecutions of the ongoing crime scene that is Wall Street, eg., MFGlobal and Corzine, is just classic fascism. After the institutions have all been consolidated, then it really trickles down onto the individual.
I fell it really has turned with the Obama administration...that Governement is NOW our ENEMY....they are against us....
Cheats, thieves and frauds don't like being called out
they deserve each other. ha ha.
CRONY MODAFACKER GEITHNER
Does that word Totalitarian stand for a President who gives a speech and in it he says "If the Congress continues to stand for only dysfunction and delay then, I'm going to move ahead without them. I will do whatever I can without Congress"!!
This from a President that has changed existing law without Congress, has Agencies creating their own laws in contradiction to the rules and has set forth more Executive Order for his period of time than any others. (Several of his Executive Orders violate questionably settled law.)
Perhaps the President should explain what "Whatever I Can without Congress" Is it a Chavez statement before issuing a State of Emergency? This border on open defiance of the Constitution! The president needs to disclaim this and set boundaries for his "CAN" None of the press are touching it.
By the way! What's Tim's group doing setting up Subsidiaries of Re-Insurance giants in Bermuda? Are they going to Qatar as well? It seems all the rage rgiht now? I wonder why $$$ "hint"
Hang this fucking weasel.
Or at least let me put a baseball bat right across his mouth.
Obama is gonna be super pissed when he reads about this in the newspaper today.
s&p should make the US goverment double D-(or whatever), the threat means we can blow up any second if the propaganda is not adhered too
Exactly...fight them using their own tactics. "You ether drop the suit or we'll lower your rating every month until it's junk."
This is the new normal, people. In the developed representative democracies for a long time even the institutional matrix isn't functioning anymore. At least not in democratic ways. And neither formal. It looks more like well greased gears, running like a clockwork. They've been completely perverted and have become instruments of just keeping in power and supplying the ruling "elites".
Election campaigns are nothing more than spectacles, staged by PR-experts, who theatrically put some political topics on for the populace, while pretending to the people, that they had to decide and choose something. But the populace has nothing to choose, because all issues have been previously picked by the partyleaders and their PR-shills. And not under the perspective, which issues are of great significance to the people. To the contrary, such topics are deliberately ignored.
Instead subjects are chosen, with which those shenanigans hope to win elections. In fact, the populace only is allowed to swallow, what parties decided to serve up. The people have been degraded into ruminants of the parties.
The citizen plays only a passive or even apathetic role, unable to constitute the political conflict the slightest bit. Hidden behind this orchestration of an "election" lies the real political process, which takes place in the form of private interactions between elected governments and the "elites", who mostly act for the economically strong protagonists.
The participation of the citizens by voting has been substituted for intransparent negotiations, and the democratic process now solely serves the purpose of creating loyalty among the masses.
Ceterum censeo Wall Street esse delendam!
Bearwagon - Concise analysis. I was at my MD yesterday and we were discussing Obamacare and how his colleague's insurance premiums and deductable had doubled in California. So this man had voted for Obama twice and still makes excuses as to why he voted that way. Oh yeah, my MD told me his colleague is going without insurance and getting the tax fine.
I mentioned this because people that are considered somewhat intelligent in society are just waking up the very hard way to what our system has become. The population has been very misled off a cliff.
The guy in charge of the treasury not paying his taxes kind of says it all doesnt it? Ya know, I am old enough to realize the depths of our own imperfect human nature but living in a fascist empire of sociopathic scumbags is really depressing.
FUCK YOU, Turbo Tax cheat Tim "Timmay!!" Geithner!!!
Timmay's Greatest Hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ussQX-B6U
This is another clear abuse of power by the Obama admin. It is a crime. Where is fukhead Holder on this? Oh yeah. He is sitting on his ass collecting money in brown paper bags.
"When the people fear the government you have tyranny. When the government fears the people you have liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
Front page of WSJ has a photo that will be representative of the next 10 years: Ukraine outlaws peaceful protests and masked citizens respond with Molotov cocktails.
Coming to a city near you... Bitchez!
"Quid pro quo, Clarice, Quid pro quo."
Shut up, Clarice, that is unless you want Timmy to fling some more baby batter in your direction.
I don't care if the government becomes totalitarian...I have nothing to hide...
I appreciate the dry subtle hints of rasberry and cocoa in your sarcasm.
So ... you already lost everything!
So it was Geithner that shut down the GW bridge ,,,,,,,,,,
Little Timmy a crooked thug? You mean this fine, former head of the NY Fed, the very one responsible for regulating the NY banks when they were leveraging up 70-1 and drinking mortgage-turd kool-aid? The ex- treasury official, that helped save Goldman while porking the taxpayers and old savers in the land? There must be some mistake!
Anyone remember this Oscar attempting performance by the little scam artist Timmah?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZLiu_9Q2FE
fuck you Geitner - little grease ball weasel
Nothing like transparent open government of the banks, by the banks, for the banks.
Its a total criminogenic environment now. Failiure in imminent. plan accordingly...
Bill Black interview by Greg Hunter
http://usawatchdog.com/jp-morgans-frauds-are-epicunprecedented-in-world-...
This makes me wonder. Whatever happened to the kid who said the King had no clothes?
Now that this scandal has broken, I hope they throw the book at Geitner like they have at others in this administration from past scandals - Fast and Furious, Bengahzi, IRS scandal, and NSA. Oh wait a minute...
Where's the list of countries that are accepting American refugees?
I want to go.
I have it right here:
Russia, if you have NSA secrets
North Korea, if you are a former NBA player
Iran, if you used to work at Oakridge National Labratory
FSA (Syrai), if you will ride in the back of a pickup truck, shooting your AK47 in the air shouting allah akbar
That's about it. No one else wants us...
Is this NJ bully politics? I am so confused. Did Christie tell Geithner to play hitman?
What really got S&P in trouble was McGraw's telling Geithner that he would look into the matter ASAP and thought it might be a Turbotax error.
Their Geithner swine was squealing. Holder responded with armed goons and verminous lawyers.
Strange Tyler would forget Egan-Jones.
They DID suspend them for 2 years AFTER they downgraded the US.
Unfortunately this POS is just one of way too many! If this whole house of shit they've erected should ever fall I bet the chaos would be so rampant that not a single one will be held responsibile....Viualize Timmy the Tit lounging dreamily in a hammock somewhere on his own island(:-(
Exercising our 1st amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, let us concur that
"The history of the present [political elite class]is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:"
[list usurpations here]
Corruption in the US government has reached epic proportions. This is what the framers of the US constitution warned about.
One of the reasons for the right to bear arms. There is a huge effort to take away that right by the socialist/communist.
Do you want to see something enlightening. here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8W6z6xDhMk
To add to the toxic mix.
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/video/tom-sullivan/terrorism-funding-just-one-thing-banks-getting-away-hsbc-whistleblower
I don't recall "coercing credit reporting agencies to lie about the mountains of taxpayer debt" as being an enumerated power in Article 1, section 8. I must have been sick that day of school.
bottom line is you can't do honest business in the USA if it's with the government.
ESPECIALLY if it's reporting anything negative about the government for the sake of actual business.
Best to just pack up & leave. China will rate US credit more accurately.
This should have been obvious from the get-go.
The correct term for this type of "warning" is "threat".
we have a criminal partisan govt, yawn, can we get back to Kim kardashians ass now!
The whole notion of a downgrade from AAA to AA+ is moronic to begin with. If the US government were a person their credit would be so bad that it would not even rank. No bank, no sub lender or even a loan shark would touch the person for fear of a complete default. Oh but I forgot accounting rules don't apply to entities that make the accounting rules.......until they do apply.