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Did POTUS Just Become A Self-Congratulatory FT Op-Ed Blogger?
While we have become used to the most 'important' thinkers, book-talkers, and self-aggrandizers gracing the pages of various mainstream media outlets with op-eds, we were somewhat surprised when the FT posted Barack Obama as El-Erian's replacement this evening. His thoughtful prose provides little of substance but does highlight the fact that self-hypnosis and surrounding one-self with a willing crowd of yay-sayers can make any disaster seem soluble. Presented with no snark, we suspect readers will enjoy his perspective on saving the world, on making austere domestic plans create jobs in a balance sheet recession (our wording), and the obvious jab at the Chinese.
Via The Financial Times:
A Firewall To Stop Europe's Crisis Spreading (we have to admit there is very little in here related to the subject??)
by Barack Obama
When leaders of the largest economies meet next week in France, our citizens will be watching for the same sense of common purpose that allowed us to rescue the global economy two years ago from a financial crisis that was sparked by years of irresponsibility.
Because of the co-ordinated action the G20 took then, the global economy began to grow again. Emerging economies rebounded. In the US, we’ve had 19 straight months of private sector job growth and added more than 2.5m private sector jobs.
Still, progress has not come fast enough and today the global recovery remains fragile. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people are unemployed. Disruptions in oil supplies, the tragic earthquake in Japan, and Europe’s financial crisis have contributed to the slowdown. Emerging economies have begun to slow. Global demand is weakening.
Our challenge is clear. We must stay focused on the strong, sustainable and balanced growth that boosts global demand and creates jobs and opportunity for our people. This requires action in several areas.
First, as the world’s largest economy, the US will continue to lead. The single most effective thing we can do to get the global economy growing faster is to get the US economy growing faster. That’s why my highest priority is putting Americans back to work. It’s why I’ve proposed the American Jobs Act, which independent economists have said would create nearly 2m jobs, boost demand and increase US economic growth. It’s why I signed landmark trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to create jobs, keep us on track to double our exports and preserve American competitiveness.
At the same time, we’re building on the nearly $1,000bn in spending cuts agreed this summer. I’ve put forward a comprehensive and balanced plan to substantially reduce our deficit over the next few years in a way that does not hamper the current recovery and that lays the foundation for future growth.
Second, the crisis in Europe must be resolved as quickly as possible. This week, our European allies made important progress on a strategy to restore confidence in European financial markets, laying a critical foundation on which to build.
Given the scope of the challenge and the threat to the global economy, it is important for all of us that this strategy be implemented successfully – including building a credible firewall that prevents the crisis from spreading, strengthening European banks, charting a sustainable path for Greece and tackling the structural issues at the heart of the current crisis.
The European Union is America’s single largest economic partner and a critical anchor of the global economy. I am confident that Europe has the financial and economic capacity to meet this challenge, and the US will continue to support our European partners as they work to resolve this crisis.
Third, each nation must do its part to ensure that global growth is balanced and sustainable so we avoid slipping into old imbalances. For some countries, this means confronting their own fiscal challenges. For countries with large surpluses, it means taking additional steps to support growth. For export-oriented economies, it means working to boost domestic demand. A critical tool for accelerating that shift is greater flexibility in exchange rates, including exchange rates that are market-driven.
Avoiding old imbalances also means moving ahead with financial reforms that can help prevent another financial crisis. In the US, we’re implementing the strongest reforms since the Great Depression. Across the G20, we need to make sure banks maintain the capital they need to withstand shocks, and there needs to be greater oversight and transparency to avoid excessive risks, especially with regard to derivatives.
Finally, the G20 nations must deepen co-operation on the range of global challenges that affect our shared prosperity. We need to move ahead with our commitment to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels and transition to 21st-century clean-energy economies. As we promote the development that gives nations a path out of poverty, we can focus on the infrastructure, finance and good governance that unleash growth. Even as we work to save lives from the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, we need to continue investing in the food security and agricultural productivity that make future famines less likely and communities more self-sufficient.
When we met in London two years ago, we knew that putting the global economy on the path to recovery would be neither easy nor quick. But together, we forged a response that pulled the global economy back from the brink of catastrophe. That’s the leadership we’ve demonstrated before. That’s the leadership we need now – to sustain economic recovery and put people back to work, in our own countries and around the world.
The writer is US president
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...he's a dickhead
This is basically a piece of insight into the unfolding collapse that is to come. First well not first in order of his quips, but actually last, but most poigniantly, he tips his hand at the shadow banking system and how over leveraged they are. He uses the catch phase "derivatives", which is now embeded into the average lexicon like it is a bad thing, when all a derivative is an underlying asset. He fails to note the problem- that is that the derivatives have never been audited, are highly leveraged, and most likely in many cases (silver bullion) do not exist.
Secondly, what is with the list? To make it seem like he has an agenda? This is as well outlined as most college term papers.
Third (I apologize for the rhetoric), he blames everyone else, and acts like Americ's problems were solved long ago. America is stricken with the same fever the world is dying from, and that is usury of a global banking system which he, Obama, supports.
Lastly (and once again I apologize for the rhetoric), or rather, finally, his solutions are made up lies that, ahem, he knows best. He doesn't, obviously, because the US is in no position to tell anyone else how to solve their problems, when America's problems still persist.
Shit, my arguement was circular.... but it is hard to quid pro quo imbecilic writing when it is circular as well.
Indeed. It is hard to comment on such obvious drivel. I can BARELY remember ANYTHING that he just "wrote". At least you are able to point out his hypocrisy, and that alone is worth a hat tip (and a + 1). Trust me, Mr L H, you have NOTHING to apologize for.
- 55,000 for you, Mr. President.
I read it and enjoyed it.
Outstanding
Mr. L H,
brilliant.
Thanks for sharing.
...that's my searingly articulate contribution...I'm off to bed
Drought and famine in the freakin horn of Africa? How bout Famine in the USSA. Oh I forgot about those 2.5 million new job He created. Back to the greater transparency thingy from the coverup and bullshit kid.
the sentences are too short, right tyler?
in summary, and with no snark: we are doomed, BiCheZ!
It wasn't bad that he stated off a sentence with because, because that can be effective, it was bad that he started a paragraph off with because.
Obama flunks grammer school.
Quadrivium, bitchez.
How can anyone stand to listen to him. He presents himself pompous, then disrespects himself with lies, spin, and same ol political bashing. No truth, no substance, nothing to believe in. And this is our President. I am ashamed, of him and my country.
+++++
Excuse me sir, but your bonds are about to go bidless. Now about that interest.
One of the greatest failures of Obama's administration was to not take control of the banksters or at least engage in battle, at least take up the fight (geeze we had to wait for OWS for somebody to speak up). One of the greatest economic crimes in history and who has gone to jail for it, who keep collecting massive bonuses from taxpayer bailouts, who continue to control all regulatory agencies and corrupt markets at will. He might not have won all or any of the battles but at least he would have been fighting for the people and country.
An abject failure to lead. The time was right, he would have had overwhelming support for his battle, so much so it would whipped some of the other corrupt Congressmen into line.... but no. Commeth the time, the wrong man commeth, a political coward.
Couldn't have that - would YOUR boss put up with you asking questions and making accusations?
Community organizing poser, he got more money from Wall Street than any other president in history. He's the Wall Street president. Faced with the greatest challenge of our generation, our debt, he promptly piled on the largest entitlement in history on top of it. Us debt slaves now must be useful and pay taxes or be taken out back and be put to sleep.
A poser, that's the easiest one word to describe the guy. Excellent, gwar5!
We could even just use the French word for it: poseur, but he'd probably think we were complimenting him...
Or accusing him of having a boyfriend.
Michele/Michael is a tranny, do you think you can get it straight just this once and have some respect? (smacks knuckles with a wet rubber chicken) Oh the humanity...
Please hit me more, mistress.
Are you sure? Seems to be an underground paraphilia for these folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPskd6Csic0
Or maybe, if I am a good mistress, what you really want, is for me to say NO! ;-)
if obummer actually wrote and submitted this himself it must've been tough for the FT to take the TWO papers he sent them and decode.
they'd have to take four or five words from the paper on the right - and then four or five words from the one on the left - and so on over and over since i think he must write that way too.
I thought he was done. I saw the down September and saw an "October abyss." I'm glad my fears did not materialize and in fact the opposite occurred. This is a surprisingly demur piece...it has the added value of being true as i like to say. Obviously this is an election that matters--just as obviously most will ignore it and at the end of the day not give a phuck. But I like my sitting Presidents going into their re-election bid feeling strong even if the American people are still flat on their back (which we all are...including me.) I'm hungry. I'm hungry for answers. I want attitude. I want someone who cries "bullshit" and means it. And I want someone who's gonna respond in kind. I agree with the President: the entirety of Planet Earth itself has now done a good job bailing out Wall Street so they can yet again be irresponsible and unfathomably dumb. Better yet: "it'll be done live on television." Call it a "simul-cast." Anywho "You can't account for taste" as they say and while Broadway might not be hoppin' Vaudville sure is. In short "we're gonna have to look to Washington for our entertainment" if we want something that isn't of such purity of disgust and deceit as to be irrelevant in any square...let alone a public one. ("Hide the friggin' silver honey...some phuck from Wall Street is calling!") Unfortunately I can already hear Erin Burnett snoring as she "takes point" on this "Great Debate." If only she was snoring next to me! Oh...could we talk politics. We could start with "where are the WMD's" and just take it from there.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
WTF?
Teleprompter Dog is nothing without the teleprompter. If it's not there, it didn't happen. His loser expert advisors have all left in failure and disgrace. He knows nothing.
He is arrogant and has isolated himself from the rest of the world. They all laugh and avoid him -- China, EU, G-7, G-20, Russia, MENA, South America and most of all his own people. Last years G-20 was a riot (literally). Our bowing leader of the free world was a pariah. Everybody was on austeriy kicks, but Bamm was spending money like crazy with Trillion dollar deficits, not even bothering to do budgets for two years.
Budget? What we need a budget fo? I da prezdent! All I need is some golf balls and clownbux. Know what I'm sain mofo?
gwar5, you are on a roll tonight. Most people overseas (who bother to have an opinion) think very poorly of The O, even in South America, the beat I know best. Even CHAVEZ disses him...
I think he would need a calculator to add 1+1
Pass me another boy, this ones split
I lost interest by the time I got to the part that said "By Barack Obama".
Did I miss anything?
Yes. He is more insipid, delusional and self-aggrandizing than you previously might have thought. Astonishing it is. One can approach a POTUS speech with absolutely no positive expectations yet still come away disappointed. Such is the uniqueness of this man's "gift".
+ 1
Excellent! I have seen the same: no expectations, and yet come away from his speeches disappointed.
I will be curious to see how our non-USA ZH readers react to this thread. ZH's European readers will be at this soon.
Other than regurgitating your last meal? Not really.
I reworked the speech a little to provide a bit more realism to it
When leaders of the largest failing economies meet next week in France, our citizens will be watching for the same sense of common misguided purpose that allowed us to kick the 2008 global financial crisis can down the road by years of more irresponsibility.
Because of the co-ordinated action the G20 took then, the mirage of global growth appeared again on CNBC & other mainstream media. Emerging economies’ inflation rebounded. In the US, we’ve had 19 straight months of private sector debt growth and added more than 25 million to our growing food stamp program.
Still, progress has not come fast enough and today the global recovery remains fucked. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people are unemployed & looking to occupy Wall Street. Disruptions in oil supplies, thanks to our bombing the hell out of Libya, the nuclear cover-up in Japan, and Europe’s dysfunctional governance have contributed to the debt slowdown. Emerging economies have begun to blowback. Global demand is peaking.
Our challenge is queer(s in the military). We must stay focused on the strong, sustainable balance sheet growth that boosts global debt and recreates Steve Jobs and opportunity for our people to go deeper into debt. This requires action in several areas.
First, as the world’s largest debtor, the US will continue to lead the rest of the world into indebtedness to our banks. The single most effective thing we can do to get the global economy growing faster is to get the US debt growing faster. That’s why my highest priority is putting Americans to work so they can truly become total debt serfs to the banks. It’s why I’ve proposed the American Steve Jobs Act, which independent economists have said would create nearly 2m jobs offshore, and boost US debt and increase the US TBTF bank income & capital. It’s why I signed landmark trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to create jobs in those countries, keep us on track to double our export of jobs and preserve American enslavement.
At the same time, we’re building more new vacant homes on the nearly $1,000bn in reduction to planned spending agreed to this summer. I’ve put forward a comprehensive balance sheet plan to substantially redouble our deficit over the next few years in a way that does not hamper the banks’ recovery of your current debt and that lays the foundation for future growth in debt and enslavement to the big banks.
Second, the crisis in Europe must be resolved as quickly as possible. This week, our European allies made important progress on a strategy to restore misplaced confidence in European financial markets, laying a critical Ponzi foundation on which to bilk its citizens.
Given the scope of the challenge and the threat to the global banks, it is important for all of us that this strategy be implemented successfully – including building a credible firewall that prevents the crisis from threatening US banks, while strengthening European banks, charting an unsustainable path for Greece and tackling the structural tissues that tear at the heart of the banks.
The European Union is America’s single largest economic partner and a critical deadweight of the global economy. I am confident that Europe has the financial and debt capacity to meet this challenge, and the US will continue to support European banks as they work to resolve this crisis.
Third, each nation must do its part to ensure that global debt growth is off balance sheet and unsustainable so we avoid slipping into old imbeciles who want us to balance the budget. For some countries, this means confronting their own Occupy Wall St. challenges. For countries with large surpluses, it means taking additional steps to support even more debt growth. For export-oriented economies, it means working to boost domestic debt. A critical tool for accelerating that shift is greater devaluation in currencies including exchange rates that are planned & driven by central banks.
Avoiding old imbeciles (Ron Paul) also means moving ahead with financial reforms that can help prevent my election defeat. In the US, we’re implementing the strangest reforms since the Great Depression. Across the G20, we need to make sure banks get the capital they need by printing to withstand stock market collapses, and there needs to be greater overbite and transference to avoid revealing the excessive risks banks are taking especially with regard to derivatives.
Finally, the G20 nations must deepen indebtedness on the range of global changes that affect our shared poor prospects. We need to move ahead with our commitment to phase out subsidies for fossil fools (like Ron Paul) and transition to 21st-century clean-energy campaign platform that might improve my re-election chances. As we promote the development that gives our nations a shared path into poverty and enslavement by the banks, we can focus on the infrastructure, finance and good governance that unleash growth in food stamps and Occupy Wall St movements across the globe. Even as we work to enslave lives to the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, we need to continue inflating food prices and agricultural products that make future famines likely and communities more reliant on banks.
When we met in London two years ago, we knew that putting the global economy on the path to recovery would be neither easy nor quick. But together, we forged a Ponzi response that pulled the global economy back from the brink of catastrophe by merely kicking that can down the road and increasing indebtedness, making the eventual catastrophe that much worse. That’s the leadership we’ve demonstrated before. That’s the leadership we see now – to sustain debt recovery and put people back to work to pay off debts, in our own countries and around the world.
The writer is TOTUS.
YOU ROCK!
That was beautiful. LOL
Oh fuck me. The transparency promised of the adminitration has been discovered stuck between two pages of an FT on the floor of the men's loo at King's Cross Station.
I am speechless.
Be it known, just as behind the Iron Curtain, humor provides the most effective means of transmitting the truth.
The Truth.
God help us all, for we have failed our own salvation.
What a putz. He praises the Euro bailout, where the banks took a 50% haircut (at least in principle). If only the US banks had been forced into that small exercise in capitalism.
Reboot.
Banks need to be just banks again. Where is this "great reform"? We keep hearing how this is a greater threat than the great depression and we can not even pass something like glass-stegall? WTF?
We don't need banks, banks need us.
True dat.
Exactly, so why would you loan banks money by way of depositing your cash with them?
My sentiments exactly when it comes to withholding taxes.
Why give Uncle Scam an interest free loan every year.
Because otherwise the gov't would be unnable to fence us or to pay cops to club us.
Um...I dunno....cuz your stupid?
How fitting. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election the Financial Times endorsed Barack Obama for president of the United States.
At least the Financial Times is consistent and predictable. It’s Establishment, even if the Establishment controllers are Keynesian insiders.
FT’s Person of the Year award also went to Barack Obama, on December 23, 2008. Quoting from the FT's accolade snippets for Obama: “The challenges we face are so profound and so daunting that we will have no choice but to choose,” said David Axelrod, Mr Obama’s campaign strategist and soon-to-be senior White House adviser. “People should be in no doubt that Barack Obama will be willing to spend his political capital in order to get things done.”
In 2010, The Wall Street Journal dubbed the FT an "orthodox Keynesian company.” I would like to dub it as an influence pusher for globalists.
And, lest we forget, in 2009, FT's “master of risk who did God’s work for Goldman but won it with love,” was none other than Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman.
Since 2005, the FT has sponsored the annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
But, then again, Time Magazine named Ben Bernanke PERSON OF THE YEAR 2009, and named Hank Paulson as a runner-up for its 2008 Person of the Year, saying, with reference to the global financial crisis, "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his..." before concluding he "is really bad at explaining why he made the choices he did" and that "given the ... realities he faced, there is no obviously better path [he] could have followed".
At least these awards are consistent, picking the persons who FT considers the most influential of the financial nobility and/or their lap dogs.
+ 1
Good reporting re the Financial Times.
The FT's lineage rests solidly within the City of London and the Rothschilds.
POTUS, < Inveritable campaiging?
It's the only thing he know how to do
I'm a squirrell on you're page.
write on, Bubba
HEELLLPPPPPPP
CALL 911
HOPIUM OVERDOZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Second, the crisis in Europe must be resolved as quickly as possible. This week, our European allies made important progress on a strategy to restore confidence in European financial markets, laying a critical foundation on which to build.
So much better if you read this in a German accent, circa 1939....
It is truly amazing that he can say (wite or think) this stuff with a straight face. I know you have to have a pretty big ego to be President, but his is truly global.
J.R. will always have my respect. I understand his idealisms. If you Junk me, fair enough...
J.R. taught me how to trade that may 2010 / move. He is an Honerable man
George Washington in his latest says that OWS is planning a General Strike on November 2. THAT would sure be a nice legacy for The O.
If you can't do the strike, how about:
Pass the word along that we could all take $500 from our ATMs that day.
Or.....
Buy Silver
Either way..........
....and Nov 5th is another take your money out of the big banks day, I heard.
Viva la Rev!
Hey, them paying 0.0%, FRN cash > electrons at the bank. (Au or Ag) > FRN cash.
And on both days! Two doses required!
At 12:00 Eastern Standard Time .... Dubbed: "High Noon Handout"
Guess this finally clears up the mystery of why his college transcripts are top secret
Prediction: the healing begins when the clowns in DC are no longer held hostage by 'financial markets'. The day some legislation passes that is negative for 'financial markets' but positive for the common good, and markets crash in response but no one seems to care, will be day one of the real recovery.
this is such vacuous drivel that its a waste of time to even rebut. i love a good fisking as much as the next guy, but this piece is like Peter McNeeley's fighting style against Tyson -- its so outside the norm of accepted standards and prior art that for a moment you question whether the bullshit is some super-genius strategy and/or logic. and then it takes you 10 minutes to realize that, no, its not, and you've just wasted 10 minutes of your life.
That's TOTUS
So what did the FT do? Print screen shots of the Teleprompter?
HaHaHa... Obama Bin Lyin' at His Best:
The writer is the US Wall Street Puppet-'n-Chief
Funny (well actually not) but if we've had 19 straight months of private job growth, why does he keep blaming the "previous administration" for all the problems?
Barack on the Hedge. Now I've seen everthing. I wonder if his "blind trust" is loaded with puts for when this shit finally collapses with his crazy management. It's perfect. 1) become president. 2) have Ben print and borrow shit loads of money. 3) buy lots of puts. 4) Manage the economy like a crazy person. 5) Let it collapse and collect shit loads from the puts. 6) buy gold.
Mr. Obama. Please feel free to remove the arse helmet from your head at any moment now.
Sincerely, everyone on earth.
It was surprising to read every comment, up to now, and not find one that supported the President. Not even the trolls stuck their heads out. Somehow this gives me a little more hope.
Bama, bro, let me tell ya something: This "rescue" was all about politicians bailing their bankster buddies. They know which side of the bread the butter is on. And we all know it too. So you can get down off your white horse and return your rent-a-hero costume and save your glowing report for your handlers. The rest of us have to barf. There ain't no rescue for the real people after all these years and all these trillions you'all spent. We're still waitin' but the answer is clear: austerity for the real people, prosperity for the cronies.
Thank you for your attention
Once again Zero Hedge proves itself ahead of the curve...
...Tyler had a great idea in the last few weeks where we were supposed to take shots when Barack mentioned the 99%'ers etc, etc.
But 10AM Tuesday speeches on CNN aren't quite as transparent as the Prez's FT pieces - that TV-speech stuff appeals to the lowest common denominator. This is straight-up globalist jibberish, meant to appeal to the more "intellectual" crowd.
Alas, I knew there was a reason I didn't get drunk on those old drinking games...
...however, if one had to do a shot each time a NWO-type theme came up in this article, it would be stomach pumps all around. See you in the ER, bitches!
To hear him tell it, things have never been better. We're going from great to greater. And it's all thanks to him, or them cause after all they "saved us" in 08! The message is 'stay the course' don't rock the fragile boat. We're working hard. But, yeah, we're cutting what you get so we can expand what they get
same old barf
I think the TOTUS just jinxed it...the catastrophe or recovery that is. Sounds like top ticking. Lots of hugs and pats on the back today. Doesn't someone have to feel the pain of the 50% haircut? There has to be a loser, right?
Doesn't someone have to feel the pain of the 50% haircut?
If you can't tell who's the patsy at the poker table, it's you. Ultimately US taxpayers will feel it as Obama and Co. continue to feel it's "our mission" to bail the banks and the bank's borrowers who can't repay. So we bail Greece (so the banks don't feel the pain of their bad loans), we're gonna get a mortgage refi package next (to avoid more foreclosures on bad loans) and the Fed will continue it's multi-trillion dollar high wire act that always shovels money over to the banks.
There is no other agenda ont the horizon. Austerity for the 99%, Prosperity for the 1%.
[O]ur citizens will be watching for the same sense of common purpose that allowed us to rescue the global economy two years ago from a financial crisis that was sparked by years of irresponsibility.
Megalomania much, statist douchebag?
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/10/calling-by-max-igan-ful...
The Calling By Max Igan [FULL]
.
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com/
Beyond Genesis – The Revolution of the Mind .
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-27/bank-of-america-derivatives-tra...
Bank of America Derivatives Transfer Draws Lawmaker Scrutiny
By Phil Mattingly and Bob Ivry - Oct 27, 2011 5:59 PM ET .
...
Congressional Democrats are asking regulators whether they explored possible risks connected to Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s moving of derivatives from Merrill Lynch into its deposit-taking unit after a credit downgrade.
Eighteen lawmakers signed onto letters from Representative Brad Miller and Senator Sherrod Brown seeking information about whether agencies consulted on the transfer considered the potential impact on the bank’s health and customer accounts.
“Because of the favored treatment of derivative contracts in receivership, it appears highly likely that losses on derivatives would result in losses to insured deposits ultimately borne by taxpayers,” Miller wrote in his letter, which was signed by eight House Democrats. The transfers were first reported by Bloomberg News on Oct. 18.
Democratic lawmakers, many of whom sought Dodd-Frank Act amendments to wall off banks’ customer deposits from risky businesses such as derivatives trading, are pressing the Financial Stability Oversight Council for information on its role and oversight of the transaction.
Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, transferred derivatives after a September downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service spurred some partners of the bank’s Merrill Lynch brokerage unit to ask that contracts be moved to the higher-rated retail bank, according to people familiar with the transactions.
Bank of America Response
“Bank of America serves clients’ needs, including with cash and derivatives instruments, through many of its affiliates, including the bank,” Jerry Dubrowski, a Bank of America spokesman, said today in an e-mail. “This is permissible in the current regulatory environment, and it is not expected to significantly change with the implementation of Dodd-Frank.”
Bank of America doesn’t hold derivatives in its deposit-taking arm to the degree that major competitors do, said Dubrowski. The firm held about $53 trillion, or 71 percent of the company’s total derivatives, in a deposit unit as of June 30, according to data compiled by the Comptroller of the Currency. That compares with a JPMorgan Chase & Co. deposit- taking entity, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives.
Moving derivatives contracts between units of a bank holding company is restricted under Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act, which is designed to keep lenders’ affiliates from benefiting from federal subsidies and protect banks from excessive risk originating at non-bank affiliates.
Geithner
Miller’s letter, which was sent to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and members of the oversight council, asks regulators about the quality of the transferred portfolio, as well as a price for the derivatives book if it was considered by the Fed to be an asset purchase. It also asks whether Bank of America made proprietary risk models available to regulators and whether there was exposure to Europe’s debt crisis.
Brown’s letter, dated today and signed by 10 senators including Carl Levin, the Michigan lawmaker who leads the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sought similar information and questioned whether the Fed explicitly granted an exemption and whether the transfer was legal.
‘Additional Subsidy’
“This provides an additional safety net subsidy for one of the biggest derivatives dealers that is contrary to not only the principles, and potentially the strictures, of the Dodd-Frank Act, but also the original intent of the Federal Reserve Act and the Federal Deposit Insurance Act,” Brown wrote in the letter to Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Acting Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg and Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh.
Andrew Gray, a spokesman for the FDIC, declined to comment on the letters. Barbara Hagenbaugh, a spokeswoman for the Fed, said in an e-mail that the central bank had received the letters and would respond. Dean DeBuck, a spokesman for the OCC, didn’t have immediate comment on the letters.
Separating complex transactions from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including Dodd-Frank, the regulatory overhaul enacted last year. Bank of America’s transfer prompted some lawmakers to push for stronger rules than were included in that sweeping law.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent who supported legislation to separate trading operations from commercial banking, said the transaction is a “perfect example why we should break up too-big-to-fail financial behemoths.”
‘Outrageous’
“If federal regulators give the green light to Bank of America to move its risky derivative schemes it acquired from Merrill Lynch into its federally insured commercial banking subsidiary that would be outrageous,” Sanders said.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat who pushed to require splitting commercial and investment banking, said Bank of America’s actions underline a lost opportunity.
“What Bank of America is doing is perfectly legal -- and that’s the problem,” Hinchey said.
Hinchey is among more than 40 House lawmakers who have signed on to a bill that would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that enforced separation of depository institutions from investment operations before it was partially repealed in 1999.
“The FDIC is in effect being forced to insure Wall Street’s risk-taking,” Hinchey said in a statement. “This is the opposite of capitalism -- the risks are socialized and the benefits are privatized.”
Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, lobbied last year for a Senate floor vote to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The amendment never got a vote. Cantwell was among the senators signing Brown’s letter.
To contact the reporters on this story: Phil Mattingly in Washington at pmattingly@bloomberg.net; Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lawrence Roberts at lroberts13@bloomberg.net; David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net
I have finally figured it out. If you have a printer and know it, you can say any dumbassed shit you want to. I can go home now.
.."His most memorable lecture involved the question, "What is a dollar of money?" In the Coinage Act of 1792, it states that the money of account shall be expressed in dollars. The term "dollar" is a unit of measurement just like quart or inch. In and of itself, a unit of measure represents nothing. In the Coinage Act of 1792, a dollar measure of gold was a certain number of grams of .999 gold, while a dollar measure of silver was a certain number of grams of .999 silver. A silver dollar should have been expressed as "a dollar quantity of silver." The lecture goes on to suggest that since a dollar is a unit of measure of silver or gold and there is no more silver or gold in circulation, the term "dollar" in use today is meaningless. He states that a judge stated to him once that the term dollar is in common use and everyone knows what it is, to which he replied, "so is the term mermaid, but they don't really exist either!" ....
http://www.silvertrading.net/articles_money_04_a_tribute_to_jenkins.html
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff0dcR1_ZeE&feature=related
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http://home.earthlink.net/~cadman777/treadmill-Jenkins.htm
Paragraph 1 "Common purpose" what is this common purpose?
http://www.stopcp.com/
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0409/Common_Purpose.html
No coincidence here folks.
Saving the world and winning the future for the women, children, oppressed minorities, and facist majorities so we can all hold our heads up proudly while they slip the yokes around our neck and make us work for the common good they bring us.
I also saw commentary on CNBS Europe this morning to the effect that the success of Europe requires a return to elite rule.
Let's call it like it is ... this 800+ year experiment with individual liberty, opportunity, and prosperity has been a big mistake, and it is time we return to what had been the natural order of man for millenia, which is serfdom and slavery.
DAX monthly chart at blog shows recent bullish candle revealing aggressive short covering rally enclosed within big picture bearish pattern.
Bullish USD weekly/monthly and bearish SP500/DOW monthly
charts will eventually ensure a violent reversal of equity uptrend.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
He was the kid in grade school you kicked the shit out of because 1) not only could you, but 2) he had his tongue so far up the teachers ass it made you sick to look at him.
Our Goldman Sachs President is the worst president in US history, yet when you do God's work, your view of your failures are only a reflection of everybody elses collective fault. Practically every paragraph in this puff piece is a lie, but who cares? Is any member of the MSM going to fact check this piece of shit?
If his lips are moving he is lying.
thankfully, i have my lucky charms decoder ring, aka ZH.
they are the most confident at their weakest moments, it seems.
Asshole in chief needs a vacation.
Does anybody believe that he wrote this? Does anybody care who wrote this? Can anybody make any sense out of what it says (assuming you bother to read it)? Is this pathetic, or what?
A trillion over 10 years??? Oh my....we owe 15 trillion and counting. He may want to consider a more progressive plan.
My God, where does even begin going through points one by one with all this rubbish?
DavidC
Not My Fault: The Memoirs of Barry Davis, er, Barack H. Obama.
financial terrorism is systemic.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozLHwHcXIvk
zimbabwe
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NZjh5J1fcI
2/2 Max Keiser: Toxic Assets is The Financial Equivalent of Plutonium.
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MONEY: Before Ron Paul, was Merrill Jenkins (M.R.) 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff0dcR1_ZeE&feature=related
Is it really a good thing to have a POTUS that is so fucking delusional????
Depends on the majority of the electorate.
Electioneering at it's finest.......or lowest, it doesn't really matter anymore.
The fact that everyone now ignores anonymous blogs1 that spread rumours of rumours of solutions is perhaps a sign of our times.
Personally, I'd like a world in which progress was measured differently than pure $ - everyone seems intent on riding the gravy train of the infrastructure of the past and not actually building a future.2
Personally, I'd like a world in which if you're employing lying psychopaths you remove them or keep them on very tight leashes3.
Personally, I'd like a world in which we're not about to eat all the fish, cause the jellyfish & Cthulu to rise and actually used some of those MIC $ to prevent it.4
Looks like we all need to change the world, given no-one else is.5
C'mon, cut Barry some slack. He did create 2.5 million jobs, unfortunately another 5 million were "discreated" at the same time. Not his fault!