Lies Divide, Truth Unites (loans, capitalism, contractor, real estate)
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This sum up of how the banks have "paid back" the TARP money was written by Dylan Ratigan (MSNBC finance guy). It cuts to the chase. He wants everyone to spread it around, so here it is. And the link to it:
Lies Divide, Truth UnitesBy Dylan Ratigan
The good news in America today is that many of lies from our leaders and media no longer seem to be working. Four out of five people view the current proposed financial reform as ineffectual. Many in Congress who voted for socialism for the rich now look like they will be voted out for continuing those giveaways.
Now the only way those Banksters can survive is to pretend that their corporate communism is working even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Most recently, they decided that instead of taxing complicit financial institutions the cost of their "Financial Reform-In-Name-Only", they will instead use what I call the Big Tarp Lie to pander for the vote of Senator Scott Brown and others.
The mainstream media rarely fights back against this lie, either by an inability to understand, a desire to protect their access to these same Politicians and Bankers or an unwillingness to go up against the very same financial institutions that are often the only thing between them and the unemployment line.
However, we the people have to fight back against these lies - and thankfully we own the truth.
This lie must be beaten back by all of us like whack-a-mole every time it rears its ugly head. Please help me by sending this information to any Politician, Media Figure, Banker, Neighbor or Robot that you find repeating it - they can take our money, but they don't own the truth.
Let's break it down:
1. TARP itself hasn't even made money. AIG alone still owes us $75.6 billion. However, they always add the caveat "Other than AIG..." when they say that the bailouts were "profitable". But the AIG money was DIRECTLY PAID to many of these same banks that "paid back their TARP" at an outrageous 100 cents on the dollar! Mind you, this was done by government officials that were the former employees and current shareholders of the very banks they were helping. Let's make the banks like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Societe Generale pay back the $105 billion of stolen taxpayer money before we let anyone say "TARP was paid back."
2. TARP is a tiny little part of a massive amount of taxpayer support. TARP is actually less than 10% of your tax dollars that have been handed to the banks. And now the banks "paid back" the tiny slice that is TARP with OUR money and you are supposed cheer them for savvy. At this very moment, the taxpayer is still owed $2.02 Trillion dollars for the bailout by our Politicians and Banksters, and that number is growing every day.
Never mind the money that these same banks make getting endless 0% interest loans from the Federal Reserve (aka You) while either they lend it back to you at 14% or just lend it right to back the government and pocket the yield. Never mind the multitude of benefits they get from being Too Big Too Fail. But you're not supposed to pay attention to that; you're only supposed to notice how fast they paid back TARP!
So instead of these Politicians looking for the only obvious place to find the money - clawbacks from the people who continue to steal it - we are now being subjected to outright lies as they once again pick the banksters over the people who voted them in. But don't let them, or anyone in the media, get away with it without hearing from you.
I think its of value to point out that according to your link, almost every single section of outstanding tax payer money has been paid back in part at least.
I also find it hilarious how everyone is up in arms about loaning Wall Street money, but, we loan countries like Israel billions of dollars every year (including the billions paid to Jordan and Egypt for not destroying them), much of it we never saw or will never see again, and you dont hear a peep about it. The Wall Street fat cats are putting it in their pocket or buying Lamborghinis, while the Israelis are buying F-16's.
If we are going to loan money somewhere, Id rather it be to the US at least.
I think its of value to point out that according to your link, almost every single section of outstanding tax payer money has been paid back in part at least.
Two words. Fannie, Freddie.
The logic of your post is a good indicator of why the average American will be financially illiterate and a subservient slave.
Thought OP laid out his case quite well.
There is class warfare going on. WS and the government are looting us. But at least now people are starting to connect the dots.
What does this have to do with anything? You have no evidence that the government investments in these entities will not turn around at some point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pjoseph2
The logic of your post is a good indicator of why the average American will be financially illiterate and a subservient slave.
Thats pretty funny. I have a degree in Finance...
Quote:
Originally Posted by pjoseph2
Thought OP laid out his case quite well.
There is class warfare going on. WS and the government are looting us. But at least now people are starting to connect the dots.
Wow, you just figured out the government is looting us? Why dont we start going thru the 100 of billions of dollars we will never have a chance of seeing again that have been spit out over the past 50 years. At least the TARP and bank bailouts have some chance of repaying the money.
Fannie and Freddie, for their part, remain at the core of a housing-finance system that inflated a dangerous housing bubble. After prices collapsed, sending shock waves around the world, the federal government put America's housing-finance system on life support. It has yet to decide how that troubled system should be rebuilt.
On Dec. 24, Treasury said there would be no limit to the taxpayer money it was willing to deploy over the next three years to keep the two companies afloat, doing away with the previous limit of $200 billion per company. So far, the government has handed the two companies a total of about $111 billion.
Eventually, the investment will go up, but the only that will happen is inflation
GSEs were a disaster waiting to happen. Fannie and Freddie should have never existed. I'd love to see your rationale as to why you think investments in these two financial money pits will ever provide a reasonable ROI. That hundreds of billions of $ could have easily gone elsewhere if it weren't for F&F.
Eventually, the investment will go up, but the only that will happen is inflation
GSEs were a disaster waiting to happen. Fannie and Freddie should have never existed. I'd love to see your rationale as to why you think investments in these two financial money pits will ever provide a reasonable ROI. That hundreds of billions of $ could have easily gone elsewhere if it weren't for F&F.
I didnt say they will ever provide a reasonable ROI. I said there is at least some chance the government can make money back on them. I also said there is no evidence that they wont have long term gains.
Sure, its bad right now, we are still in a real estate mess. Eventually, we will get out of it, and Freddie and Fannie will likely return to profitability. Look at most of the bigger banks.
My biggest issue though, is not with people crying about dumping money in to the banksters check books. My problem is, where are they when we are dumping money in to Israels pockets? Building bridges to nowhere? Paying contractors to build shoddy unusable buildings in Iraq? None of these things have ANY chance of ever paying off.
We want to jump down Citi and BOA's throats, but we just keep stroking checks to Haliburton and the Israeli people.
Id rather bail out Wall Street, save a few American jobs, and hope for a return, then hand the money to a foreign country. At least if you give the money to the banksters, they are going to try their best to increase the value.
My biggest issue though, is not with people crying about dumping money in to the banksters check books. My problem is, where are they when we are dumping money in to Israels pockets? Building bridges to nowhere? Paying contractors to build shoddy unusable buildings in Iraq? None of these things have ANY chance of ever paying off.
We want to jump down Citi and BOA's throats, but we just keep stroking checks to Haliburton and the Israeli people.
Id rather bail out Wall Street, save a few American jobs, and hope for a return, then hand the money to a foreign country. At least if you give the money to the banksters, they are going to try their best to increase the value.
You won't get any argument from me there. I definitely don't care for the billions we send out every year. But an organization like Fannie/Freddie distorted the housing and mortgage market immensely, and because of the their implicit government guarantee, created a lot more risk-taking on the part of banks and investors. Who cares if it goes belly up --- fannie and freddie will take care of it
The government should not backstop the mortgage market. That should be done by the market itself. What happened to capitalism? Aren't we supposed to let organizations benefit or suffer from their actions? I understand that there are banks to big too fail, but our future course of action should be to ensure that no bank ever gets too big to fail/die by the sword of capitalism. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The sales pitch for TARP and associated bailouts was to keep those companies in business so they wouldn't hemmorage credit that jobs depended on and we could keep our economy.
The reality of it was so the top bankers could keep themselves from suffering losses while they "downsized" to match the new conditions.
So in reality the same practical effect happened to the economy that would of happened if we didn't loan them anything, except now some very special people who own pet politicians didn't have to loose anything they gambled during the bubble econonmy, and 300 million suckers are left paying the bill (in more ways than one).
Meanwhile, the actual unemployment rate is somewhere north of 20% and it all seems to be getting worse. Soon enough the special people will retreat behind their high walls and let us all eat each other, or spark the next world war with the hope that recreating the circumstances of WW2 will lead to a new boom.
Id rather bail out Wall Street, save a few American jobs, and hope for a return, then hand the money to a foreign country. At least if you give the money to the banksters, they are going to try their best to increase the value.
Dylan Ratigan is right and so is post number 8 here. Ratigan has said this for some time now on his show, but on the same network right after him Chris Mathews has lawmakers on that say the exact opposite like the transfer of wealth bailouts saved everything and the economy is growing again which is complete nonsense. Truth is bailout or not we are in another great depression and the lawmakers are not working on real solutions. Neither austerity or borrowing more from private banks is a solution.
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