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You guys will not understand what is really going on here until you understand that the tarp loans to GS were just a red herring, a distraction. The real game is AIG, and all the money we pumped in that direction. Which then went to GS, and other firms. The PR people at GS tell us GS had the risk of AIG fallure hedged, but they should be made to prove that those counterparties would have paid 100 cents on the dollar. That is very doubtful, So the 12 or 13 billion GS got from AIG came directly from the taxpayers.
Second, GS has become a government sponsored entity, knowing they can walk into the financial casino, place their bets, and if they lose, the tax payer will cover them. How can the fail to make money?
Third, GS played a major role in creating the commodities supply panic of 2008, convincing everyone that they should pay $150 for oil today, so they don't have to pay $200 tomorrow.
But I doubt if anything will happen, because GS and the other Wall Street big financials are so tight with the financial press, there will never be good investigative journalism on this. Ask a financial reporter if he has any personal friends who work on Wall Street, and they will all say yes. Ask most New York and Washington based reporters in general if they have friends who work on Wall Street. Chuck Todd of NBC admitted as much several months ago, saying that "all of us have social friends on Wall Street, maybe if we all knew some autoworkers, we would look at each set of bailouts differently."
Then throw in the fact that Barney Frank is good friends with Henry Paulson....
Remember, Galleon is just the tip of the iceberg.
Justin, please find out where the AIG money went, and make them prove their other hedge counterparties could pay up. Because we also bailed them out.

randymiller

9

You know, these guys would be living in a different universe if so many members of the financial press weren't wearing clown shoes.
I quote Justin's coworker, after describing how Andrew Hall has his unit rent a tanker and take delivery of 1 million barrels of oil because he thought the price was temporarily low.
"When the price of oil recovered Hall made as much as $40 million on that one trade alone. "
Excuse me, but he would have had to make over $42 per barrel to both cover his costs and make $40 per barrell. I find that very improbable.
Does this idiot reporter know this to be the case? If so, he doesn't provide any evidence. Instead, he gushes on:
"Hall has also reportedly been buying gold this year. Another good move...."
But not a particularly innovative one, particularly when you are playing risk-free with other people's money backed by the government.
I don't have any problem with the idea that individuals can be worth a lot of money. I can name three whose companies I have dealt with and where the company's success clearly bears their imprint:
1. Bill Gates
2. John Chambers
3. Steve Jobs
Maybe Andrew Hall is one of these folks. Or maybe he's just a guy who engages in highly leveraged, high risk transactions with other people's money. Who knows?
What I can tell you definitely is that nobody will be able to make that determination more accurately because they read this idiot article in time.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1930732,00.html
Small wonder that America's discussion of this issue approaches the overtly moronic.

tc125231

October 19, 2009

at 3:13 pm

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WASHINGTON — The House ethics committee on Thursday expanded its investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel to include his belated financial disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unreported assets and income.
The expansion only increases the political burden that the Ways and Means Committee chairman from Harlem places on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refuses to make him step down from his post.
Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have said they would take no action while the ethics investigation of the New York Democrat is under way, but the inquiry has dragged on for a year and expanded several times while it pushes closer to the 2010 election year.
Republicans have forced House votes three times, the latest this week, on removing Rangel from his tax-writing position. While Democrats easily defeated each attempt, the issue has allowed Republicans to ridicule Pelosi's refrain that Democrats would drain the swamp of ethical misconduct that previously plagued Republicans.
The committee said it would now investigate whether Rangel broke House rules "with respect to all financial disclosure statements and all amendments filed in calendar year 2009" as required under the Ethics In Government Act.
The law requires annual financial reports filed by all members of Congress showing ranges of assets and income.
Rangel's revisions showed assets and income from 2002 through 2006 that should have been reported in those earlier years.
The committee also gave an accounting of its work so far.

Story continues below

The House investigators have authorized nearly 150 subpoenas, interviewed some 34 witnesses and reviewed more than 12,000 pages of documents.
The committee has been concentrating on alleged financial improprieties and fundraising irregularities.
Among the most serious of Rangel's problems: the House's tax-writing chairman failed to pay all of his taxes, allowing Republicans to level charges that a tax scofflaw is writing tax legislation.
The unreported assets included a federal credit union account worth between $250,000 and $500,000; a Merrill Lynch account valued between $250,000 and $500,000; tens of thousands of dollars in municipal bonds and $30,000 to $100,000 in rent from a multifamily brownstone building in New York.
The ethics committee of five Democrats and five Republicans is also investigating whether Rangel and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus violated gift rules and other standards of conduct with trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.
It's looking at contributions of money or monetary pledges to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York and his use of official House stationery to solicit potential donors.
Other questions involve Rangel's acceptance and use of rent-stabilized apartments in New York from a Manhattan developer, and whether he received a sweetheart deal to finance his ownership interest in the Dominican resort.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/ethics-committee-expands_n_314342.html