----- From: norgesen
THE FINANCIAL ELITE Dr. Stanley Monteith | November 2008 http://www.radiolibertycom/nlnov08.html ======= Paulson Caused the Crisis Would you trust either of these men with $700 billion? There’s a fascinating - in that can’t look away from a car wreck kind of way - story in today’s Times about the roots of the financial meltdown. Way back in 2004, leaders of the five biggest Wall Street investment banks, including our current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (who was then running Goldman Sachs), convinced the Securities and Exchange Commission to loosen a small but significant regulation called the net capital rule. The rule forced banks to keep enough money in reserve to shield themselves if their investments went south. In other words, it was there to make sure Wall Street could bail itself out in case of a crisis. But because the SEC gave geniuses like Henry Paulson what they wanted and eliminated the requirement, we the taxpayers now have to pay the tab for their recklessness. The big banks wanted to be able to borrow more money to spend on derivatives and other risky investments - including subprime mortgage bonds. And after the SEC removed the regulation, they went on a debt-fueled spree. Bear Stearns was the worst offender. For every dollar of its own money it spent on risky investments, it borrowed $33. (A 33-1 debt to equity ratio!) The other firms, including Paulson’s, weren’t much better. It’s galling to think that Secretary Paulson was one of the main people pushing to eliminate this critical check on Wall Street’s avarice. (Jonathan Schwartz at A Tiny Revolution points out that Paulson was pushing the government to get rid of the net capital rule as far back as 2000.) Not only that, under his stewardship, Goldman Sachs bought and sold huge amounts of subprime bonds. This is the man that now wants a blank check for $700 billion - without any oversight at all - to “solve” the crisis that he caused? And what about the SEC? It took them less than an hour to vote unanimously to give in the Wall Street and relax the net capital rule. Unbelievably, in exchange for doing so, the big banks agreed to give the agency more oversight of their operations. But it simply failed to use that new power. That kind of regulation by no regulation is nothing new. In 1994, Congress gave Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve the authority to stop mortgage companies from issuing predatory home loans. But just like the SEC ten years later, Greenspan’s Fed wanted so badly to believe in the myth of the self-regulating market, it refused to do its job. http://www.captiveamerican.com/paulson-caused-the-crisis/ ========= November 2008 - The Financial Elite October 2008 - The Oil Deception: Part III September 2008 - The Oil Deception: Part II August 2008 - The Oil Deception --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ShadowGovernment" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ShadowGovernment -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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