"How Wall Street took $331 MILLION from Philly and its schools" (Philadelphia: mortgage, credit)

[2e1m5a]

Through "Interest Rate Swaps" Wall Street firms including Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have cost Philadelphia taxpayers $331 Million.

"The School District has paid out $63 million to Wall Street banks just to cancel five agreements, and the city has paid an estimated $52.4 million-plus".

Too powerful to fail Banks have also profited from taxpayers of cities such as Denver and Birmingham by "gambling with public money".


http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/How-Wall-Street-took-331-million-from-Philly-and-its-schools.html



When will we hold Wall Street accountable for their actions?
Why do we continue to "Bailout" these Banksters for failure and fraud?

Why were Banks that were already deemed "Too Big to Fail" allowed to consolidate and become even more powerful after the recession, to the point where they are more profitable than at any time in American history?

Why are these the same exact same Banks that profited off The Great Depression and again used the bad economy to consolidate and gain power?

80 YEARS LATER – SAME CULPRITS, SAME RAGE « The Burning Platform

[rombolax]

What a weak thread.

A more accurate title would be, "How Philly officials gambled snd lost $331 million."

Wall Street did not take. Philly gave!!!

Philly ented into a CONTRACT with Wall Street. Philly bet that interest rates would go up. Wall Street bet that interest rates would go down. Interest rates went down. If interest rates had gone up then Philly would have won the bet and Wall Street would have lost the bet.

The real question is when are bleeding heart liberals like yourself going to hold the people you elected to run Philly, accountable?

[Boompa]

Is it supposed to surprise me that the parasites on Wall Street stole from children. Their currency swaps ruined Europe and their Mortgage swapping destroyed the US economy. They have sucked half of the money out of economy and want more. Good old American made Guillotines are the only cure for their greed

[FindingZen]

Let's keep this focused on the article and the alleged interaction between the banks and the Philadelphia School District.

[Avalon08]

But can I just comment on the fact that improper punctuation can change the whole meaning of a sentence? Based on the title of the thread -- "How Wall Street took $331 MILLION from Philly and it's schools" -- I thought "schools" was the answer to the question of how Wall Street took the millions. "It is schools!"

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by Avalon08

But can I just comment on the fact that improper punctuation can change the whole meaning of a sentence? Based on the title of the thread -- "How Wall Street took $331 MILLION from Philly and it's schools" -- I thought "schools" was the answer to the question of how Wall Street took the millions. "It is schools!"

Point noted...and the thread title has been corrected.

[couldntthinkofaclevername]

Originally Posted by rombolax

What a weak thread.

A more accurate title would be, "How Philly officials gambled snd lost $331 million."

Wall Street did not take. Philly gave!!!

Philly ented into a CONTRACT with Wall Street. Philly bet that interest rates would go up. Wall Street bet that interest rates would go down. Interest rates went down. If interest rates had gone up then Philly would have won the bet and Wall Street would have lost the bet.

The real question is when are bleeding heart liberals like yourself going to hold the people you elected to run Philly, accountable?

I agree with this. People who decided to gamble with money instead of being smart and keeping it safe should not be able to point fingers at others because they lost their gambles.

They should be held accountable for entering into the contract, especially given that it was not personal money.

Citypaper is a joke.

[phillies2011]

Originally Posted by rombolax

What a weak thread.

A more accurate title would be, "How Philly officials gambled snd lost $331 million."

Wall Street did not take. Philly gave!!!

Philly ented into a CONTRACT with Wall Street. Philly bet that interest rates would go up. Wall Street bet that interest rates would go down. Interest rates went down. If interest rates had gone up then Philly would have won the bet and Wall Street would have lost the bet.

The real question is when are bleeding heart liberals like yourself going to hold the people you elected to run Philly, accountable?

I'm not sure exactly how you figure that wall street won... wall street totally screwed up and collapsed the entire world economy. Wall street has not come out on top because they are better gamblers than the city of Philadelphia; wall street went down, and Philadelphia's money went with it.

BUT then wall street was bailed out. Bailed out with taxpayer money, BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money. Now these companies have returned to profitably not because they're so smart and savvy, but because we paid them not to fail. Meanwhile Philadelphia is left holding the bag and after already losing millions of dollars, has to pay millions more to terminate contracts that shouldn't have even been legal and only were due to lobbying from wall street.

Originally Posted by couldntthinkofaclevername

I agree with this. People who decided to gamble with money instead of being smart and keeping it safe should not be able to point fingers at others because they lost their gambles.

They should be held accountable for entering into the contract, especially given that it was not personal money.

Citypaper is a joke.

Originally Posted by The cited City Paper article you obviously didn't bother to read

Are public institutions acting like sore losers after making a poor decision in the free market? Maybe. But the taxpayers bailed out these very same institutions: $700 billion in TARP money—part of an estimated $3.5 trillion in total support for Wall Street.

This very much includes city and School District creditors (or in this case, what are called “counterparties”), which made out big on TARP alone: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch ($45 billion), Wells Fargo ($25 billion), Citigroup ($45 billion) and on and on.


"These financial institutions have profited, while Philadelphians have paid the price through lost city services, lost jobs, and lost school programs,” the report notes. “The financial institutions, on the other hand, have returned to profitability with subsidies from taxpayers—including Philadelphia taxpayers—and with multimillion-dollar contracts with the city. Moving forward the banks should respond as good corporate citizens of Philadelphia, by refunding a portion of the lucrative cancellation fees they received for terminating bad deals and renegotiate those deals which are currently active.”

If you take the time to read, you'll see that City Paper does indeed acknowledge that the city gambled on the free market and lost.


They simply point out the injustice that companies that were bailed out by our taxpayer money are able to profit for their failures while Philadelphia is stuck not only with no bailout but with being forced to cancel contracts that should have never been legal in the first place.


Disagree with the premise if you wish, but City Paper fully acknowledges that the city gambled and lost.


City Paper is a joke? City Paper is one of the most respected independent weeklies in the nation... an endless list of awards and recognition attests to this. They provide the city with solid journalism that at this point (sad as this may be) easily rivals Philadelphia's more reputed news papers in some respects.



In era where quality journalism is becoming more and more scarce, a newspaper that works hard to break stories that matter to Philadelphians is an asset to this city.

[couldntthinkofaclevername]

Originally Posted by phillies2011

I'm not sure exactly how you figure that wall street won... wall street totally screwed up and collapsed the entire world economy. Wall street has not come out on top because they are better gamblers than the city of Philadelphia; wall street went down, and Philadelphia's money went with it.

BUT then wall street was bailed out. Bailed out with taxpayer money, BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money. Now these companies have returned to profitably not because they're so smart and savvy, but because we paid them not to fail. Meanwhile Philadelphia is left holding the bag and after already losing millions of dollars, has to pay millions more to terminate contracts that shouldn't have even been legal and only were due to lobbying from wall street.







If you take the time to read, you'll see that City Paper does indeed acknowledge that the city gambled on the free market and lost.


They simply point out the injustice that companies that were bailed out by our taxpayer money are able to profit for their failures while Philadelphia is stuck not only with no bailout but with being forced to cancel contracts that should have never been legal in the first place.


Disagree with the premise if you wish, but City Paper fully acknowledges that the city gambled and lost.


City Paper is a joke? City Paper is one of the most respected independent weeklies in the nation... an endless list of awards and recognition attests to this. They provide the city with solid journalism that at this point (sad as this may be) easily rivals Philadelphia's more reputed news papers in some respects.



In era where quality journalism is becoming more and more scarce, a newspaper that works hard to break stories that matter to Philadelphians is an asset to this city.

Like I said, citypaper is a joke. I wasn't going to read their "article".


It doesn't matter if they should've been illegal or not. The city agreed to them. They shouldn't have. People love to blame Wall Street but tell me.. who is it that funds Wall Street? We do. We give them our money. We don't need to, but we do. Don't play the game if you don't want to get burned and if people force you to play the game by gambling with your pension or your funds then you should hold THEM accountable.

How many people even bother to understand the contracts they sign? How many people bother to understand the various financing they enter into in their lives?

Wall Street should've never had to be bailed out. We as a country relied on an industry that should've never existed in the first place. Every single part of our economy is tied to that industry now, and it shouldn't be. Not even just our country actually.. the entire world.

Solid journalism? Hardly. It's no better than the Inquirer. It doesn't matter what stories they cover. It matters how they cover them. Sad as it is, there isn't a single legitimate publication in this metro, and the closest one is probably the smaller ones like the Delaware County Daily Times and the others who use that news company that supplies the majority of the smaller newspapers in the area (forget the name of it).

[phillies2011]

Originally Posted by couldntthinkofaclevername

Like I said, citypaper is a joke. I wasn't going to read their "article".


It doesn't matter if they should've been illegal or not. The city agreed to them. They shouldn't have. People love to blame Wall Street but tell me.. who is it that funds Wall Street? We do. We give them our money. We don't need to, but we do. Don't play the game if you don't want to get burned and if people force you to play the game by gambling with your pension or your funds then you should hold THEM accountable.

How many people even bother to understand the contracts they sign? How many people bother to understand the various financing they enter into in their lives?

Wall Street should've never had to be bailed out. We as a country relied on an industry that should've never existed in the first place. Every single part of our economy is tied to that industry now, and it shouldn't be. Not even just our country actually.. the entire world.

Solid journalism? Hardly. It's no better than the Inquirer. It doesn't matter what stories they cover. It matters how they cover them. Sad as it is, there isn't a single legitimate publication in this metro, and the closest one is probably the smaller ones like the Delaware County Daily Times and the others who use that news company that supplies the majority of the smaller newspapers in the area (forget the name of it).

Good to hear that you apparently know more about the quality of newspapers than those in the industry. You are seemingly an expert in EVERYTHING and with such little real world experience to boot. Your mama and papa must be proud.