Testimony

Click here for a webcast of the Joint Economic Committee's Q&A with Ben Bernanke live and commercial free. Note - there is no mention of "extended period" in Bernanke's prepared remarks. Watch for a discussion of just that, as well as questions on asset sales, debt levels, GSEs, inflation, and, of course, when interest rates will be raised. Full Bernanke testimony in which the Chairman sees a "moderate recovery."

The delusional Mr. Greenspan testifies this morning before the FCIC. The hearing can be seen live and commercial free here. Below are the testimonies of all participants at today's hearing.

It seems it was just yesterday that Bernanke was on the edge of committing perjury and lying that the Federal Reserve of New York knew nothing about Lehman's "more peculiar" off balance sheet transactions. Oh wait, it was: as a reminder in his cross by Scott Garrett, the New Jersey representative asked whether the "Fed was aware of the Repo 105 and the accounting irregularities going on?"
Bernanke answers "No - they were hidden." Oops. Because a story just released by the Financial Times seems to indicate otherwise, and unless Merrill Lynch is lying out of their derriere, Mr. Bernanke should be immediately investigated for potential perjury before the American people. "Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve officials were warned by [Merrill Lynch] that Lehman Brothers was incorrectly calculating a key measure of its financial health months before its collapse in 2008...In the account given by the Merrill officials, the SEC, the lead
regulator, and the New York Federal Reserve were given warnings about
Lehman’s balance sheet calculations as far back as March 2008."  Amusingly, the sole purpose why Merrill would rat out Lehman is to make its own disastrous situation more agreeable, as often happens when the rats realize the sinking of the ship is inevitable. Well, unlike Merrill, whose liquidity situation was equally as disastrous on the weekend of September 14th, which found a pressed suitor in the form of BofA (and its Fed/Goldman-puppet CEO Ken Lewis), Lehman was not quite so lucky (one wonders why). Yet the bigger issue is why does the Fed keep on lying to the American public without any trace of consequence? When will someone finally wake up and sue the Federal Reserve (and we don't mean FOIA), or at least slap a racketeering lawsuit on "those people?" Oh yeah, the market is up, American Idol is on TV, G-Pap has done all that was needed to (not) be bailed out, so all shall be well. This is better known as "if the other Ponzi dude was thrown in jail, you must acquit" defense.

Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and other members of the Committee, I am pleased to present the Federal Reserve's semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.

Although the recession officially began more than two years ago, U.S. economic activity contracted particularly sharply following the intensification of the global financial crisis in the fall of 2008. Concerted efforts by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and other U.S. authorities to stabilize the financial system, together with highly stimulative monetary and fiscal policies, helped arrest the decline and are supporting a nascent economic recovery. Indeed, the U.S. economy expanded at about a 4 percent annual rate during the second half of last year... Etc

Cliffnoting the just released Bernanke testimony in praise of the printing presses. Lots of theory, no forward looking calendar. "At some point" in the future liquidity will be tightened. But not yet. Not yet.

Watch Tim Geithner's testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on the President's amusing 2011 budget live and commercial free, here. It is time someone asks why the GSEs continue getting the Federal Budget exemption.

We hope, although it is very unlikely, Senator Bunning somehow makes a guest appearance with some very directed questions.

More death and destruction, this time from Hank Paulson: "The decision to rescue AIG was correct, and I strongly supported it. An AIG failure would have been devastating to the financial system and the economy. We could not have anticipated the magnitude of AIG’s problems; and we had no way of letting it fail without disastrous collateral consequences" but "I was not involved in any of the decisions made with respect to those payments, nor was I involved in any of the decisions about AIG’s public disclosure of those payments. Those matters were handled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Federal Reserve Board." And Tim wasn't in charge... So who the hell was it?

"With respect to these investigations, it is SIGTARP's policy not to comment publicly on non-public, ongoing criminal or civil investigations, and thus we cannot comment further at this time, other than to note that these assertions do not at this time constitute a factual finding by SIGTARP. At the conclusion of the investigations, however, we anticipate that the details of our findings will be reported to Congress, as appropriate, either through formal court filings or in the form of Investigative Reports." - Neil Barofsky

Is it time to summon Davis Polk And Wardwell to provide testimony before Congress? New disclosure from the Huffington Post seems to indicate so.

Ben Bernanke has yielded to increasing public pressure to finally disclose all the details surrounding the AIG bailout, and in a letter to Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Bernanke said he would welcome a full review of the AIG taxpayer bailout by the GAO and will make available "all records and personnel necessary to conduct this review," emphasizing that a review should give taxpayers "the most complete understanding of our decisions and actions." One wonders why stop at AIG? Why not open up the Fed to a GAO audit on all bank bailout activities undertaken in the period commencing with the GSE nationalization, and culminating with the Lehman bankruptcy. Surely that would provide an ever more "most complete" understanding of just who got what and how much taxpayer capital was put just so Wall Street could enjoy another record bonus season.

A few misplaced words is all it takes to scare the market into submission. The proposed reason for today's impressive market reversal from up over one percent, to negative now, has been attributed to testimony by the Fed's Jon Greenlee, Associate Director, Division of Banking
Supervision and Regulation, before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Greenless strays from the party line and dares to say (the truth) things that his associates at the secretive Federal Reserve would never willingly share with the market for fear of just the kind of reaction that we have seen in past hour.

Just because words like "failing", and "bail out" have no place in the prepared remarks of a former chairman of the SEC, and a advisor to The Carlyle Group, Getco and, of course, Goldman Sachs. Always better to sugarcoat a little just to be on the safe side. Especially when you are in the pocket of High Frequency Trading, Private Equity and Goldman.

If you missed Fed, Wall Street and CNBC public enemy #1 yesterday, here is your chance to see him live again. Neil Barofksy, the scourge of all crony bankers (crony is redundant in the last phrase) and "honest answer-conflicted" Fractional Reserve Banking system executives, will be testifying at 2:00 PM before the House Committee on Fin Services. The hearing will consist of two panels, with Herb Allison dominating the first one, and sure to provide extensive entertainment as per usual.

Hank Paulson: "Although attention has recently focused on brief moments of stress during the events of December 2008, those moments are not foremost in my recollection."

As Ben is about to be crucified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, below is his full prepared testimony. Also, if readers want to watch the hearing live without CNBC's commercial interruptions for Sham-Wow or Mark Haines doing long division on air to calculate the difference between Dow futures and fair market value, they can do so here.