If you are still wandering blind and living under the illusion that there is any difference between the Federal Government and the Wall Street Banks, please disabuse yourself of that notion. They are tied together at the hip in their campaign to drain America of every last penny of wealth. To date, how many bankers have gone to jail over the sub-prime mortgage mess? How many do you think are going to jail after Foreclosure-Gate really gets rolling?…and who did Madoff piss off?
Countrywide itself is paying $20 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million payment as part of an indemnification agreement he has with the company.
As part of the settlement, Mr. Mozilo, 71, also agreed to be permanently banned from serving as an officer or a director at any public company.
Federal authorities have been criticized for ineffectively policing Wall Street in the years leading up to the financial crisis and the settlement with Mr. Mozilo represents a significant milestone for the government.
In what universe?
Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs paid a $550 million fine to settle securities fraud charges. Securities regulators are also investigating former senior executives at Merrill Lynch for possible securities fraud.
Another piece of sleight of hand to make you believe that Goldman Sachs isn’t running the government when GS makes billions in profit each quarter.
While securities fraud cases are complex and often difficult to win, analysts have taken the government to task at times for not moving even more aggressively against Wall Street in the wake of the credit debacle.
Still, the settlement by Mr. Mozilo is the first time that a prominent executive has been penalized personally for financial excesses linked to a mortgage boom that, when it went bust, threatened to topple the economy and led to an unprecedented wave of foreclosures.
How’s this for wealth transfer?
For years, Mr. Mozilo was among the highest-paid executives in America and his S.E.C. fine is a fraction of the vast wealth he amassed running Countrywide. In one eight-year period, from 2000 until he left the company in 2008, Mr. Mozilo received total compensation of $521.5 million, according to Equilar, a compensation research firm.
I will ask again, “And why is this guy not in jail?” and/or, “is he going to jail when the total meltdown of Foreclosure-Gate happens?”
Neil Cavuto interviews Kelsey Grammar about his political opinions and his introduction of RightNetwork.
I guess the by-product of the Tea Party Patriots getting off their couches is now everybody can feel good about being a Constitutionalist, speaking their minds, and having a media outlet that isn’t spinning itself silly trying to keep the moos corralled.
Then again, I may find out that another globalist is funding this project.
(A very enjoyable ad) A Step Forward – RIGHTNETWORK
About
What we’re about
We are proud Americans.
And we’re inspired by the many Americans before us who’ve stepped forward to help move us all forward. So now we’re stepping forward. We’re creating a platform where people can join the national conversation. A place where they can be inspired, entertained, laugh together, or just sit back and enjoy being part of a vibrant community with a similar perspective – a right-minded perspective that includes an entire spectrum of opinion from thoughtful and reserved to bold and brash.
a right-minded perspective that includes an entire spectrum of opinion from thoughtful and reserved to bold and brash.
We seek to present the values and beliefs that America was built upon. We aim to be straight shooters and will always come to the party with a potent point-of-view. But we will not dominate the conversation… we’ll stimulate it. And we will listen happily as the many voices of the Right combine. We’ll always encourage debate and we will not shrink from the fight, if it’s a fight worth having.
And we”ll enjoy presenting everything with an intelligent wit, a sense of humor, and an optimistic turn. After all, we live in the greatest country on earth and we’re excited about what’s next. Join us. Let’s all step forward together.
RIGHTNETWORK is an independently owned media company. RIGHTNETWORK original content will be available through television, web and mobile.
Still sifting and looking for the “independent owners” but did find this SEC Filing.
I woke up this morning to the news that the SEC is charging Goldman Sachs with fraud. Whoopeedoodle. In October of 2008, I wrote a piece based on a WSJ article about the FBI opening preliminary investigations into 26 banks. Anybody heard a peep about it since? The last article I saw was the investigation of BofA over Merrill Lynch in September, 2009.
The average American may think this is great news if they were really paying attention and had all the facts. An SEC charge against Goldman Sachs is more deflect and distract.
TurboTax Timmie (and some say Hank Paulson) was in China begging for cash. Reports of Bill Clinton secretly heading over to Japan for cash, Barack Obama bowing to the chinese a couple weeks after a secret trip to Afghanistan(and God knows where else), and then this little story from MarketTicker that you may have missed in the all the tea party bashing going on the last two weeks.
No, not just Greece – all of Europe. Without Congressional authorization or notice, of course.
Hattip to a nice emailer….
Or if you prefer it on a one-year time scale…
That nice little vertical line is a gain of $421.8 billion dollars of outstanding loans and leases in one week’s time.
WHERE THE HELL DID THAT MONEY GO AND WHAT COLLATERAL WAS TAKEN AGAINST A FOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR INCREASE IN OUTSTANDING LOANS?
You won’t find anything like that in the records – because it’s never happened before. That’s beyond unprecedented, it’s ridiculous, and assuming it’s also accurate, someone has some ‘splaining to do on what clearly appears to be some sort of back-door game being run.
Update: It has been suggested that this may be related to the FASB changes and securitized loans coming back on the balance sheet. If so, where’s the alleged memorandum items on the other side and the footnote on FRED? The latter is missing, but the necessary data on FRED to confirm that is not yet updated.
Nonetheless, if this is the case, it’s still bad (just not catastrophic) as this will directly hit capital ratios. Or, put another way, where’s the additional capital that “should” be there to support what is now on balance sheet and was previously off (never mind that it was crooked as hell to have it off in the first place!)
So next time you see something incredibly out of the ordinary (Goldman Sachs charged? AYFKM?), ask yourself, “what are they trying to hide?”
April 16, 2010 Goldman Didn’t See SEC Coming FBN’s Charlie Gasparino says sources inside Goldman Sachs say they didn’t see the SEC probe coming.
It never fails to amaze me that people will appear to testify under oath at a congressional hearing and try to make events seem completely different than what they are even when there is a known paper trail. Did Lewis think that Bernanke was going to cover his behind? I personally think there is much more to this story; whether we ever find out how much Bernanke and The Fed actually had to do with the merger of BofA and Merrill Lynch is another story completely.
Watch as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, (who seems to have found his cajones), puts Kenneth Lewis, (former Bank of America CEO), through the gauntlet of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I hope the irony of the name of the committee has not been lost on you, and that you understand that this little dog and pony show is just for you, the American public.
Also remember that this mess started decades ago with The Fed, Congress, the big NY Banks, and the SEC. I wonder if the message that we cannot trust our government is getting through yet? Bush threw gasoline on this economic downturn, and Obama is striving for complete scorched earth with the help of Rahm, David, Austin, etc.
In keeping with never letting a good crisis go to waste, the theory that the government allowed Al Qaeda to attack us isn’t too far a stretch when considering what Richard Gage has to say about 7 WTC. Our government’s involvement in 9/11 revolves around Building 7, and if Richard Gage’s theory proves correct, it will take us to some even darker places than we have been before, (but not totally unexpected).
700 Architects and engineers are calling for a new investigation of 9/11 and “Building 7” because of the controlled demolition, and evidence thereof, of this building.
My readers know that I am currently researching a massive rabbit hole, but am going to take some time to follow up on what exactly Building 7 is all about, and given who the tenants of building 7 were, it will probably be very interesting. I have emphasised the tenants of note that I will be investigating.
The position of Building 7 in relation to the other WTC buildings before September 11, 2001
In June 1986, before construction was completed, Silverstein signed Drexel Burnham Lambert as a tenant to lease the entire 7 World Trade Center building for $3 billion over a term of 30 years.[19] In December 1986, after the Boesky insider-trading scandal, Drexel Burnham Lambert canceled the lease, leaving Silverstein to find other tenants.[20] Spicer & Oppenheim agreed to lease 14 percent of the space, but for more than a year, as Black Monday and other factors adversely affected the Lower Manhattan real estate market, Silverstein was unable to find tenants for the remaining space. By April 1988, Silverstein had lowered the rent and made other concessions.[21]
In November 1988, Salomon Brothers withdrew from plans to build a large new complex at Columbus Circle in Midtown and agreed to a 20-year lease for the top 19 floors of 7 World Trade Center.[22]The building was extensively renovated in 1989 to accommodate the needs of Salomon Brothers.[23] Most of three existing floors were removed as tenants continued to occupy other floors, and more than 350 tons (U.S.) of steel were added to construct three double-height trading floors. Nine diesel generators were installed on the 5th floor as part of a backup power station. “Essentially, Salomon is constructing a building within a building – and it’s an occupied building, which complicates the situation,” said a district manager of Silverstein Properties. The unusual task was possible, said Larry Silverstein, because it was designed to allow for “entire portions of floors to be removed without affecting the building’s structural integrity, on the assumption that someone might need double-height floors.”[23]
At the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Salomon Smith Barney was by far the largest tenant in 7 World Trade Center, occupying 1,202,900 sq ft (111,750 m²) (64 percent of the building) which included floors 28–45.[6][24] Other major tenants included ITT Hartford Insurance Group (122,590 sq ft/11,400 m²), American Express Bank International (106,117 sq ft/9,900 m²), Standard Chartered Bank, Securities and Exchange Commission (111,398 sq ft/10,350 m²), and the (106,117 sq ft/9,850 m²).[24] Smaller tenants included the Internal Revenue Service Regional Council (90,430 sq ft/8,400 m²) and the United States Secret Service (85,343 sq ft/7,900 m²).[24] The smallest tenants included the New York City Office of Emergency Management,[25]National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Federal Home Loan Bank, First State Management Group Inc., Provident Financial Management, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[24] The Department of Defense (DOD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shared the 25th floor with the IRS.[6] Floors 46–47 were mechanical floors, as were the bottom six floors and part of the seventh floor.[6][26]
We all see the same names coming up over and over again, yet you may wonder why the DOD and CIA were left out. As always; following the money…
