Tag: financial crisis

Gov. Schwarzenegger Lays Out Priorities in State of the State Address

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Every once in a while, it’s good to see what the press is spinning directly, so you can judge for yourself what’s being said. Attached is The Governator’s State of the State press release for your edification.

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Gov. Schwarzenegger Lays out Priorities, Urges Continued Bipartisan Teamwork in State of the State Address

Today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his annual State of the State address before a joint session of the California legislature. The Governor reflected on the teamwork that brought California through the worst recession since the Great Depression in 2009 and laid out his vision for California in 2010.
Continue reading “Gov. Schwarzenegger Lays Out Priorities in State of the State Address” →

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

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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

Read Article.

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.


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.

Report to the President – SBA Small Business Financing Forum

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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.

Read Article.

Landrieu, Snowe Bill to Create Jobs and Increase Small Business Lending

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For those of us treading water, this is a hopeful sign.

the “Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act of 2009” would increase the small business loan limit to as high as $5.5 million and extend for a year the fee eliminations and increased guarantee set to expire under the Recovery Act.

Specifically, the “Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act of 2009” would:

  • Increase the loan limit on 7(a) loans from $2 million to $5 million;
  • Increase the loan limit on 504 loans from $1.5 million to $5.5 million;
  • Increase the loan limit on microloans from $35,000 to $50,000 and increase the maximum loan made to a microloan intermediary from $3.5 million to $5 million;
  • Allow the 504 loan program to refinance short-term commercial real estate debt into, long-term, fixed rate loans;
  • Extend the authorization to provide 90 percent guarantees on 7(a) loans and fee elimination for borrowers on 7(a) and 504 loans through December 31, 2010; and
  • Direct the SBA to create a website where small businesses can identify lenders in their communities.

Read the complete press release.

Bunning Statement on Bernanke: ‘You Are the Definition of a Moral Hazard’ | Real Time Economics – WSJ

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Senator Jim Bunning smokes Ben Bernanke:

Instead of taking that money and lending to consumers and cleaning up their balance sheets, the banks started to pocket record profits and pay out billions of dollars in bonuses. Because you bowed to pressure from the banks and refused to resolve them or force them to clean up their balance sheets and clean out the management, you have created zombie banks that are only enriching their traders and executives.

…you put the printing presses into overdrive to fund the government’s spending and hand out cheap money to your masters on Wall Street, which they use to rake in record profits while ordinary Americans and small businesses can’t even get loans for their everyday needs.

Read This NOW!

A more complete, yet less satisfying description of the hearing can be read here.