Category: News and Views

Geithner’s Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure | Bloomberg.com

~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment
Rat Bastard!

The far enough down the road we get, the clearer people’s motivations become. After all, if your next job depended on it, wouldn’t you help out your future employer?

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

Emphasis added

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Offered again for your consideration:

The Great American Bubble Machine | Rolling Stone

Learn about how Goldman Sachs has participated in inflating five bubbles since the early 20th century, plus, the gas they’re about to pass our way in cap and trade.

Seriously, read this and pass it on.


Additional Funding for SBA Recovery Lending Programs will Support $4.5 Billion in Small Business Lending | SBA

~ CBPS ~ 1 Comment

Agency plans to restart Recovery loan approvals by Dec. 28

WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bill on Saturday, which included $125 million to continue through Feb. 28, 2010, the enhancements made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to SBA’s two largest loan programs. The SBA estimates the additional funding will support $4.5 billion in small business lending.

New approvals of loans with the higher guarantee and reduced fees made possible by ARRA are expected to begin by Dec. 28.  Loan applications from borrowers who chose to be placed in the SBA’s Recovery Loan Queue will be funded first, followed by new loan approvals beginning on or before Dec. 28.
Continue reading “Additional Funding for SBA Recovery Lending Programs will Support $4.5 Billion in Small Business Lending | SBA” →

Community lenders hit the funding jackpot | CNN – CA Hispanic Chambers of Commerce

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Too bad they hit the jackpot on the nickel slots.

The entire Goldman bonus pool should be donated to small businesses, but that’s just me.

Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) have been a rare small business lending success story this year — and next year, they’ll have more cash.

Continue reading “Community lenders hit the funding jackpot | CNN – CA Hispanic Chambers of Commerce” →

Banks That Bundled Bad Debt Also Bet Against It | NYTimes.com

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Lewis Sachs, left and John Paulson, right

“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”

Read on to find out how Goldman Sachs created and sold securities – they thought would lose money – to investors.

Underwater and Not Walking Away – Brent T. White – Arizona Legal Studies, The University of Arizona.

~ CBPS ~ 1 Comment

The home financing system in America works because lenders count on your moral belief system, not contracts, to hold you to the deal, while they do not take that same obligation. This one single fact gives lenders the enormous power of humiliation. Brent White has created one of the most cogent and well crafted descriptions of the present storm we’re riding, along with some unusual observations.
Continue reading “Underwater and Not Walking Away – Brent T. White – Arizona Legal Studies, The University of Arizona.” →

Report to the President – SBA Small Business Financing Forum

~ CBPS ~ 2 Comments

The opening remarks of this report contains the following brilliant observation:

With financial institutions tightening lending standards in this recent economic crisis, the small businesses that depend on them for credit have been hit particularly hard.

Ya think? Without the ability to sell stock or bonds to raise capital, small businesses have to turn to banks. Banks are required to meet tough new standards and for the most part, keep the loans they write on their balance sheets. To maintain their required ratios, most banks have withdrawn credit from those least able to survive it, small business. A perfect storm.
Continue reading “Report to the President – SBA Small Business Financing Forum” →

Citi Execs Sell Assets to Avoid Pay Czar | Reuters

~ CBPS ~ 1 Comment

The executives at Citibank want to avoid the wall street pay czar so badly, they’re fire selling company assets to raise enough money to pay back the TARP funds:

Citigroup also is ending an agreement with the government that guaranteed a roughly $250 billion portfolio of assets against excessive losses.

The bank sold $17 billion of common shares and another $3.5 billion of bonds that automatically convert into shares in three years.

The bank sold convertible notes that pay a coupon of 7.5 percent a year, and automatically convert to shares at a 25 percent premium to the pricing level in three years.

The bank said on Monday it also plans to issue $1.7 billion of shares to employees, and may sell another $3 billion of trust preferred securities in the first quarter.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo have done the same thing, but they found buyers and Citi didn’t. These banks will crash again, they aren’t doing better, they’ve found even lower ways to be greedy. When they crash again, let them go under.

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