Wall St. Bailout: Is A Massive Scandal About To Unfold? [View All]

[kpete]

Wall St. Bailout: Is A Massive Scandal About To Unfold?
by bobswern
Sun Mar 08, 2009 at 04:45:01 AM PST

Are facts concerning details of the current Wall Street bailout--past, present and future--about to unfold in a manner which may very well undermine President Obama's first term unless he acts immediately to staunch the damage created, and the damage about to be created, by the missteps of both (former) Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as well as (current) Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

...........................

Reports have been circulating, based upon leaks to the media over the past 24 hours, that:

1.) AIG ("Bad Bank" #1): $50 billion of the $173 billion forked over to AIG, since September, has been doled out to a handful of Wall Street heavy-hitters--a/k/a the "couterparties" that paid AIG to insure their toxic paper--to support their so-called insurance claims, backed by the good faith of AIG; folks who happened to make a pantload of money writing insurance policies on these Credit Default Swaps and Commercial Debt Obligations over the past few years.

We have Ms. Morgenson in the NY Times telling us the counterparties' sweetheart deals are "likely to increase" in terms of sheer numbers of billions of taxpayer dollars. But, it's the additional documentation ("NEW INFO") below Morgenson's quote which is most troublesome...it's not $50 billion...it's already $80 billion...and these same firms are receiving 100 cents on the dollar for this toxic paper, too!

Gretchen Morgenson tells us in Sunday's NY Times: "A.I.G., Where Taxpayers' Dollars Go to Die."

A.I.G., Where Taxpayers' Dollars Go to Die
Gretchen Morgenson
March 8, 2009

...Mr. Liddy wouldn't provide details on who the counterparties were or how much they received. But a person briefed on the deals said A.I.G.'s former customers include Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and two large French banks, Société Générale and Calyon.

All the banks declined to comment.

How much money has gone to counterparties since the company's collapse? The person briefed on the deals put the figure at around $50 billion.

Unfortunately, that is likely to rise. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/business/08gret.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1236502889-+AeFgr9ecukV/IrkscDfoQ

NEW INFO: It's already a LOT more than $50 billion, which was reported as "the number" in the past 24 hours; it's at least $80 billion and growing, or almost half of all the funds sent to AIG to date...and growing; perhaps much more if not MOST of the funds dished out to AIG to date all going to the same usual suspects...
The facts are we may just be scratching the surface on the AIG matter. It's going to--and already is--getting much more out-of-hand than originally reported, and virtually all of those funds has gone to the same 20-25 firms (and that's only as of late December '08); and, perhaps even more outrageous, it appears that a trend had developed early on with regard to these toxic debt purchases, whereby the recipients (that same list of 25+/- firms) of the Treasury Department's and the Federal Reserve's largesse were profiting to the tune of 100% on the actual value of the paper being purchased. They're doing this by allowing the counterparties to KEEP the collateral, on top of receiving the payments!!! (See story link and quote, immediately below.) In other words, the Fed was overpaying these firms to the tune of full face value, 100 cents on the dollar, on paper that was only worth from 20 cents to 60 cents on the dollar in the marketplace!

more plus lots of links:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/3/8/7452/30422/848/705961