Fed's Bank Aid is 'Same Scam Continuing': Spitzer

[kpete]

Source: CNBC

Fed's Bank Aid is 'Same Scam Continuing': Spitzer

By: JeeYeon Park | 07 May 2009 | 09:21 AM ET

We won’t know if these bank stress tests are real until we see how the government measures them, said Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York.

"What we have seen is a breakdown of capitalism," Spitzer said in a live interview on CNBC. "We have seen a libertarianism driven by Alan Greenspan's worldview that was absolutely destructive to the life-savings of middle-class Americans. The Fed has been sliding (money) into these banks through hidden mechanisms, lowering interest rates, this notion of converting the common stock…It is the same scam continuing—and this should not continue."

Spitzer criticized the bank stress tests and said the middle class will suffer the most as a result. He said that without any change in bank behaviors, the banking crisis would only continue to persist and grow.

“Regulators were supposed to have been asking the same question years ago," he said. “What we have done is shift the obligation from the backs of corporations to shareholders. I’m not even sure we’re seeing cosmetic changes at this point. We still have the same banking system in place that got us into this mess. I have not seen any changes in behavior."

In the meantime, Spitzer said private sector jobs are crucial to a long-term stability in the job markets.



Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/30619073

[Taverner]

1. Oh Eliot why did you have to fuck up so????

You were the top choice for AG

And you know you would have had it

But you fucked up

Oh man you fucked up

And you could have done some serious good

Look - internet PORN! WTF is wrong with internet PORN?????

[izquierdista]

4. He was set up

Some day, when Karl Rove is good and drunk and ready to brag, the REAL story will be known.

[Taverner]

5. I agree he was the product of a hit

But if he didn't fuck up, they would have nothing.

Its that he walked into their trap hook line and sinker.

[w4rma]

Everyone has some skeleton. Spitzer is dangerous to the big banks, obviously.

They likely spent *a lot* of money going after him to find that little thing. And, I'm not terribly sure that him sleeping with a prostitute will affect him greatly in the long term. Just makes him ineligible for President.

[Mike 03]

2. Spitzer? He's a lawyer, what does he know about the health of the banks or how their

destruction could adversely affect us?

Go back home and write your fucking memoirs, Eliot.

He's just trying to get back into our good graces by voicing ignorant opinions he knows "common folk" (i.e., ignorant people) will reactively agree with.

And I'm confessing my own gullibility here, because Spitzer was a guy I wrote here, at DU, should run for POTUS. As you might imagine, I retract that view.

[w4rma]

9. He's only been successfully investigating them for years, now. That's all.

:sarcasm:

[truedelphi]

14. Are you kidding us? Spitzer was NY Attorney General before being governor.

Go do a google search and you'll come up with a lot of hits if you have "Spritzer" + banks and/or Bank regulations as your expressions to search.

He was really keeping tabs on what was going down, and make no mistake, they took him down. The Powers that Were (of the last administration) used Homeland Security investigation of Spitzer's money transfers to find out about Spitzer's personal life.

Granted he walked into the "high paid escort" trap, but he was, in terms of banking laws and public interest, a force to be reckoned with. He may have been dishonest in terms of his marriage vows, but in terms of protecting the public, he really looked out for us.

Here's three Url' right off the top of a google search:
www.cnbc.com/id/30475441

www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-133548726.html

www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=28

Spitzer also handed Monsanto a $ 50,000 fine for its misleading advertising on the safety of its number one product RoundUp. If you watch ads on TV you will notice they never SAY aerosol products are safe for pets or children, due to the menace that Spitzer made of truth-in-advertising laws. However, there is no law to not IMPLY safety, which is why the benzene-loaded crap that gets advertised is accompanied by picture s of how safe it is to use near the butterflies, puppies and the babies in the household.

[bemildred]

3. Once you get to mainlining fake money, this is how it goes. nt

[Psephos]

15. exactly right n/t

[SOS]

6. He's not the only one to recognize the "stress test" fraud

Bill Black:

"Bottom line: there were no real examinations. Banks continue to overstate asset quality. The bankers pressured Congress, which extorted the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which gutted the accounting rules on loss recognition. Because there were no real examinations, there were no real stress tests. So only one question is key: why does Treasury believe that anyone will believe its compound fiction?"

[notesdev]

7. anyone with an ounce of sense

knows these stress tests are bunk. They're measured against levels of unemployment already exceeded, and got massaged for a month before being made public. Bernanke coming out smiles after being wrong time and time again, and 500,000 more jobs are lost, for now 16 months running.

We are being robbed. This is a grand racketeering scheme, a conspiracy to steal our money, and give it to Wall Street and to Washington DC and to China. Everyone involved ought to be prosecuted - the bankers, the regulators, the congressmen, the credit rating agencies, and so on down the line until everyone who profited from this scheme is held to account.

This country needs to start to live within its means, and fast. The money people think will be there, to repay loans, to finance houses and cars and retirements - won't. It's been stolen by people who will continue to steal until we put a stop to them.

[truedelphi]

13. It is so damn frustrating.

And Why oh why did Spitzer have to sink so low? and get put out of business. He was one of the only people that ever stood up to Monsanto, (And that company's lies) and he understand the criminals running Wall Street better than anyone.

[nradisic]

8. Spitzer is damn right!

Yeah he liked young hookers, but he has his heart in the right place when it comes to common sense and protecting the common good...

[dweller]

10. Oliphant agrees ...

dp

[Baby Snooks]

11. What will Obama say?

Probably absolutely nothing.

[xchrom]

12. recommend -- how many people have to say this? nt