Courtesy Lorenblog.wordpress.com

Great article from Robert Reich from Salon: about the curious connections and convenient decisions within Bush’s first bailout program:

When it turns out that people like Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who took home $68 million in 1997, was the only Wall Streeter in a meeting last September at the New York Federal Reserve to discuss the initial AIG bailout with Tim Geithner, then New York Fed chair, among others, at the very time Goldman was AIG’s largest trading partner, a distinct scent of self-dealing begins to emanate. When it turns out that Citigroup got a bailout deal last October far more generous than that given to any other distressed bank, when a top Citi executive was advising the Treasury and Fed, the scent increases. Goldman’s past CEO was treasury secretary at that time, by the way, and another former Goldman CEO was a top Citi official and also a former treasury secretary. I am not suggesting anything so crude as corruption. But could it be, given these tangled webs, that — innocently, unintentionally, perhaps even subconsciously — the entire bailout effort was premised on saving these companies rather than protecting the public? Or that the distinction between the two was lost, and still is?

Past experience has taught us not to trust Bush when he’d tell you he was working for “you.” Bush took 8 years of our lives and used them as a money funnel to all his friends and colleagues. From Robert Reich’s perspective here, it appears that, in our darkest financial hour as a country, Bush and his cronies were forming plans to fleece us right out the door, economy be damned.

Why is this a surprise? It shouldn’t be. His dad was the President of the wealthy and connected. The son followed the dad’s footsteps well.

I am so sick and tired of this wheeling/dealing at our expense. It seems to me there are very likely straight-forward options to addressing our economy, but when it becomes one big game for Washington where results mean less than keeping the campaign funders happy, I wonder how we’ll be able to pull ourselves out of this.

It’s as if the most powerful people in the world told the rest of us that they have all the food we’d ever need and none of us will starve if we’re patient. Then, the entire group of them go up to a locked Penthouse suite, divide all of it amongst themselves and devour it all on the spot while we stand on the street below, looking up. Every couple of hours, one of them looks down at us and says, “Don’t worry. We’re making sure you’ll be fine. Just ignore the fact that my face is stuffed like a pig.”

Current News, Politics AIG, Citigroup, George W. Bush, Goldman Sachs, Lloyed Blankfein, stimulus bill, Tim Geitner

From CNN:

Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit reminded the committee that he canceled an order for a $50 million jet last month because it seemed unseemly just after his company received $45 billion from the government.

“We understand the old model doesn’t work,” Pandit said, adding that he’s cut his own salary to $1 until Citicorp returns to profitability. “We did not adjust quickly enough to this new world. Let me be clear to the committee: I get the new reality.”

He would have been blind and deaf to have missed it. Citigroup canceled the jet order after none other than President Barack Obama pressured them to nix the “outrageous” expenditure.
What about Citicorp’s other jets and those owned by the other banks?

“You could sell them” and use the money to reimburse taxpayers, commented Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. “The big show of not buying one particular type of new plane flies in the face of how you’re really flying.”

No one took him up on the suggestion.

I hate to, once again, use profanity, but Pankit’s statement about not adjusting quick enough floors me, so I have to simply say:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

When someone yells fire in a crowded movie theatre, you either run for the exits or get a bucket of water. Based on the way these guys have managed their banks, they’ve been stopping the guy with the water to take a long, relaxing drink. How many people need to be burned until these guys understands that their privileged little world isn’t the world the rest of us live in? How many will die of smoke inhalation until they realize the money they received is the money of those who’ve lost money with them and is NOT for their personal needs or the old, confortable ways of doing business.

I’m always at a loss when institutions and corporations hire incompetents so routinely. Is it that there is a certain level of privileged society where the networks are much smaller and the failures of these individuals is stiffled by the awe of their previous positions. In Hollywood, if you’ve gotten a screenplay produced - even a piece of shit that fails at the box office - you are more likely than a brilliant novice to get your next project going. Simply put, you’re in the club.

Well, the club should now be under scrutiny by the public. We need to humiliate these people. It may be the only thing they understand. But this week’s humiliation is really not enough. It needs to be constant. Five years from now, people need to remember the name Vikram Pandit and know that he’s not even worthy of being in charge of the french fry bin at Burger King.

Politics bank bailout, bank mergers, Citigroup, recession, Vikram Pandit