Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows - The Orange Mane

mhgaffney · 01-29-2010, 05:21 PM

The source here is Bloombergs -- not some wild conspiracy site.

Keep in mind -- Tim Geithner was the head of the NY Fed -- when all of this came down. Now he is Obama's Treasury Secretary. Unbelievable.

A few months ago I heard Kokie Roberts, one of the top NPR radio hosts, refer to the Fed as a government agency. Unbelievable.

MHG

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aaIuE.W8RAuU

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows

Commentary by David Reilly

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail.

That move came a few weeks after the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department propped up AIG in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s own mid-September bankruptcy filing.

Saving the System

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was head of the New York Fed at the time of the AIG moves. He maintained during Wednesday’s hearing that the New York bank had to buy the insurance contracts, known as credit default swaps, to keep AIG from failing, which would have threatened the financial system.

The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also focused on what many in Congress believe was the New York Fed’s subsequent attempt to cover up buyout details and who benefited.

By pursuing this line of inquiry, the hearing revealed some of the inner workings of the New York Fed and the outsized role it plays in banking. This insight is especially valuable given that the New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve.

This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank.

Geithner’s Bosses

The New York Fed is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks that operate under the supervision of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, chaired by Ben Bernanke. Member-bank presidents are appointed by nine-member boards, who themselves are appointed largely by other bankers.

As Representative Marcy Kaptur told Geithner at the hearing: “A lot of people think that the president of the New York Fed works for the U.S. government. But in fact you work for the private banks that elected you.”

And yet the New York Fed played an integral role in the government’s bailout of banks, often receiving surprisingly free rein to act as it saw fit.

Consider AIG. Let’s take Geithner at his word that a failure to resolve the insurer’s default swaps would have led to financial Armageddon. Given the stakes, you might think Geithner would have coordinated actions with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Yet Paulson testified that he wasn’t in the loop.

“I had no involvement at all, in the payment to the counterparties, no involvement whatsoever,” Paulson said.

Bernanke’s Denials

Fed Chairman Bernanke also wasn’t involved. In a written response to questions from Representative Darrell Issa, Bernanke said he “was not directly involved in the negotiations” with AIG’s counterparty banks.

You have to wonder then who really was in charge of our nation’s financial future if AIG posed as grave a threat as Geithner claimed.

Questions about the New York Fed’s accountability grew after Geithner on Nov. 24, 2008, was named by then-President- elect Barack Obama to be Treasury Secretary. Geither said he recused himself from the bank’s day-to-day activities, even though he never actually signed a formal letter of recusal.

That left issues related to disclosures about the deal in the hands of the bank’s lawyers and staff, rather than a top executive. Those staffers didn’t want details of the swaps purchase to become public.

New York Fed staff and outside lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardell edited AIG communications to investors and intervened with the Securities and Exchange Commission to shield details about the buyout transactions, according to a report by Issa.

That the New York Fed, a quasi-governmental body, was able to push around the SEC, an executive-branch agency, deserves a congressional hearing all by itself.

Later, when it became clear information would be disclosed, New York Fed legal group staffer James Bergin e-mailed colleagues saying: “I have to think this train is probably going to leave the station soon and we need to focus our efforts on explaining the story as best we can. There were too many people involved in the deals -- too many counterparties, too many lawyers and advisors, too many people from AIG -- to keep a determined Congress from the information.”

Think of the enormity of that statement. A staffer at a body with little public accountability and that exists to serve bankers is lamenting the inability to keep Congress in the dark.

This belies the culture of secrecy obviously pervasive within the New York Fed. Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns noted during the hearing that the bank initially refused to disclose even the names of other banks that benefited from its actions, arguing this information would somehow harm AIG.

‘Penchant for Secrecy’

“In fact, when the information was finally released, under pressure from Congress, nothing happened,” Towns said. “It had absolutely no effect on AIG’s business or financial condition. But it did have an effect on the credibility of the Federal Reserve, and it called into question the Fed’s penchant for secrecy.”

Now, I’m not saying Congress should be meddling in interest-rate decisions, or micro-managing bank regulation. Nor do I think we should all don tin-foil hats and start ranting about the Trilateral Commission.

Yet when unelected and unaccountable agencies pick banking winners while trying to end-run Congress, even as taxpayers are forced to lend, spend and guarantee about $8 trillion to prop up the financial system, our collective blood should boil.

mhgaffney · 01-29-2010, 05:24 PM

After you've imbibed the above, check out this short talk by JFK about secret societies. This was given in 1963 -- just a few months before JFK was snuffed.

I always thought JFK was talking about the Commies. I was wrong. JFK was onto these guys way back when. That's no doubt why they snuffed him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7l6i4w11U

Rohirrim · 01-30-2010, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

After you've imbibed the above, check out this short talk by JFK about secret societies. This was given in 1963 -- just a few months before JFK was snuffed.

I always thought JFK was talking about the Commies. I was wrong. JFK was onto these guys way back when. That's no doubt why they snuffed him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7l6i4w11U

He is very clearly referring to communism. JFK was intensely anti-communist.

W*GS · 01-30-2010, 09:00 AM

gaff-o strokes it 'til its raw when he thinks something verifies his paranoid fantasies.

mhgaffney · 01-30-2010, 05:09 PM

No, you should listen to the speech again.

If JFK had meant the Soviets he would have referred to this directly in the speech. He does not -- he is talking through inference here -- between the lines.

The speech was given in 1963. This was AFTER the Cuban Missile CRisis (Oct 62) that had such a major impact on JFK. After the crisis -- in which we came within a whisker of nuclear war -- JFK started to change. In the last 6-8 months of his life he took steps to end the Viet Nam War, started a back door dialogue with Kruschev, decided to shut down the CIA, and to end the Colf War and prepare the American people to live in peace.

These were radical moves,. As we know he did not live to finish them.

Ro is right that JFK started as a COld Warrior. But the Cuban Missile Crisis changed him radically. IT's why he had to die.

As usual, Ro sees what he WANTS to see.

It's always the same story -- a story of ignorance and arrogance on the part of we civilized westerners with respect to everybody else.

W*GS · 01-30-2010, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

As usual, gaff-o sees what he WANTS to see.

Fixed it for ya.

You're one of those generation for whom the assassination of JFK so damaged their psyche that they never really recovered any semblance of sanity. Sorta like Oliver Stone.

I don't see a reason to invest so much into a President - the office doesn't make the person a God.

mhgaffney · 01-30-2010, 05:49 PM

The murder of JFK damaged our nation -- and everyone in it.

It was not only a crime -- it was a high crime -- pulled off in broad daylight -- in front of the whole world -- by a conspiracy of evil doers who had (and have) total contempt for the American people and for the US Constitution.

The crime was never solved. FYI, there is no state of limitations for murder.

No surprise that Q*gs' sympathies lie with the powers that be -- including the banksters, neo cons and Zionists -- never with the people and never with the Constitution.

JFK's unsolved murder continues to be important for another reason. He was the last US president who actually formulated monetary policy. One of JFK's biggest battles was with the fed.

His successor -- LBJ surrendered monetary policy to the fed -- and no surprise -- thus began the decline that has continued ever since -- and which has greatly accelerated in recent years.

We need to revive the history that's disappeared down the memory hole.

MHG

The Lone Bolt · 01-30-2010, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

The murder of JFK damaged our nation -- and everyone in it.

It was not only a crime -- it was a high crime -- pulled off in broad daylight -- in front of the whole world -- by a conspiracy of evil doers who had (and have) total contempt for the American people and for the US Constitution.

The crime was never solved. FYI, there is no state of limitations for murder.

No surprise that Q*gs' sympathies lie with the powers that be -- including the banksters, neo cons and Zionists -- never with the people and never with the Constitution.

JFK's unsolved murder continues to be important for another reason. He was the last US president who actually formulated monetary policy. One of JFK's biggest battles was with the fed.

His successor -- LBJ surrendered monetary policy to the fed -- and no surprise -- thus began the decline that has continued ever since -- and which has greatly accelerated in recent years.

We need to revive the history that's disappeared down the memory hole.

MHG

Umm . . . I'm pretty sure the crime was solved.

mhgaffney · 01-30-2010, 07:34 PM

Pretty sure and pretty wrong.

W*GS · 01-31-2010, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

No surprise that Q*gs' sympathies lie with the powers that be -- including the banksters, neo cons and Zionists -- never with the people and never with the Constitution.

Uh-hunh.

I don't buy into your paranoid fantasies, so I must be part of the Other.

You're precisely the kind of person that is so dangerous to society - because you're riddled with fear and are thus easily manipulated. Anyone can make up a boogeyman, or boogeymen ("banksters, neo cons and Zionists"), and you'll happily march into battle on their orders to destroy them. You don't take a critical look at anything.

Hilter, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and so on just *love* guys like you.

W*GS · 01-31-2010, 01:09 PM

mhgaffney · 01-31-2010, 01:09 PM

I have called for an end to the imperialistic wars, and for a return to the US Constitution. This implies the vigorous investigation and prosecution of high crimes under the law of the land.

Notice -- how W*gs interprets this as an assault upon society. Mind boggling.

In his view the deepening economic slide and international decline of the US just sort of happened -- through mis chance. An unlucky roll of the die. In his view, no one is responsible. Unbelievable.

W*GS · 01-31-2010, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

I have called for an end to the imperialistic wars, and for a return to the US Constitution. This implies the vigorous investigation and prosecution of high crimes under the law of the land.

Notice -- how W*gs interprets this as an assault upon society. Mind boggling.

What you claim in your first paragraph and what you actually believe are two quite different things.

We've all seen what you really think - dressing it up as a silk purse doesn't mean it ain't a pig's ear.

The other issue is that you're exactly the kind of sort that makes men like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot possible - it's fearful paranoia that makes you putty in their hands. They tell you that you're not responsible, that dark forces run the world, and that if and only if you believe in them and do as they say, will all be made sweetness and light. You'll excuse any action that you take as justifiable - you're the smiling Himmler.

You and your ilk are dangerous - very susceptible to simple "explanations" to complex phenomena, and more than ready to throw reason and skepticism out the window once you hear what you want to hear.

The Lone Bolt · 01-31-2010, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

Pretty sure and pretty wrong.

Here's a hint: Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

baja · 01-31-2010, 06:37 PM

I am opening up building sites on my ranch for survival homes any interest?

Bronco_Beerslug · 01-31-2010, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baja

I am opening up building sites on my ranch for survival homes any interest?

Hey baja, how are you doing these days??

baja · 01-31-2010, 07:17 PM

great my friend and you?

01-29-2010, 05:21 PM	#1
mhgaffney Ring of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 9,764	Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows The source here is Bloombergs -- not some wild conspiracy site. Keep in mind -- Tim Geithner was the head of the NY Fed -- when all of this came down. Now he is Obama's Treasury Secretary. Unbelievable. A few months ago I heard Kokie Roberts, one of the top NPR radio hosts, refer to the Fed as a government agency. Unbelievable. MHG http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aaIuE.W8RAuU Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows Commentary by David Reilly Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all. Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials. We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny. The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail. That move came a few weeks after the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department propped up AIG in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s own mid-September bankruptcy filing. Saving the System Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was head of the New York Fed at the time of the AIG moves. He maintained during Wednesday’s hearing that the New York bank had to buy the insurance contracts, known as credit default swaps, to keep AIG from failing, which would have threatened the financial system. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also focused on what many in Congress believe was the New York Fed’s subsequent attempt to cover up buyout details and who benefited. By pursuing this line of inquiry, the hearing revealed some of the inner workings of the New York Fed and the outsized role it plays in banking. This insight is especially valuable given that the New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve. This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank. Geithner’s Bosses The New York Fed is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks that operate under the supervision of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, chaired by Ben Bernanke. Member-bank presidents are appointed by nine-member boards, who themselves are appointed largely by other bankers. As Representative Marcy Kaptur told Geithner at the hearing: “A lot of people think that the president of the New York Fed works for the U.S. government. But in fact you work for the private banks that elected you.” And yet the New York Fed played an integral role in the government’s bailout of banks, often receiving surprisingly free rein to act as it saw fit. Consider AIG. Let’s take Geithner at his word that a failure to resolve the insurer’s default swaps would have led to financial Armageddon. Given the stakes, you might think Geithner would have coordinated actions with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Yet Paulson testified that he wasn’t in the loop. “I had no involvement at all, in the payment to the counterparties, no involvement whatsoever,” Paulson said. Bernanke’s Denials Fed Chairman Bernanke also wasn’t involved. In a written response to questions from Representative Darrell Issa, Bernanke said he “was not directly involved in the negotiations” with AIG’s counterparty banks. You have to wonder then who really was in charge of our nation’s financial future if AIG posed as grave a threat as Geithner claimed. Questions about the New York Fed’s accountability grew after Geithner on Nov. 24, 2008, was named by then-President- elect Barack Obama to be Treasury Secretary. Geither said he recused himself from the bank’s day-to-day activities, even though he never actually signed a formal letter of recusal. That left issues related to disclosures about the deal in the hands of the bank’s lawyers and staff, rather than a top executive. Those staffers didn’t want details of the swaps purchase to become public. New York Fed staff and outside lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardell edited AIG communications to investors and intervened with the Securities and Exchange Commission to shield details about the buyout transactions, according to a report by Issa. That the New York Fed, a quasi-governmental body, was able to push around the SEC, an executive-branch agency, deserves a congressional hearing all by itself. Later, when it became clear information would be disclosed, New York Fed legal group staffer James Bergin e-mailed colleagues saying: “I have to think this train is probably going to leave the station soon and we need to focus our efforts on explaining the story as best we can. There were too many people involved in the deals -- too many counterparties, too many lawyers and advisors, too many people from AIG -- to keep a determined Congress from the information.” Think of the enormity of that statement. A staffer at a body with little public accountability and that exists to serve bankers is lamenting the inability to keep Congress in the dark. This belies the culture of secrecy obviously pervasive within the New York Fed. Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns noted during the hearing that the bank initially refused to disclose even the names of other banks that benefited from its actions, arguing this information would somehow harm AIG. ‘Penchant for Secrecy’ “In fact, when the information was finally released, under pressure from Congress, nothing happened,” Towns said. “It had absolutely no effect on AIG’s business or financial condition. But it did have an effect on the credibility of the Federal Reserve, and it called into question the Fed’s penchant for secrecy.” Now, I’m not saying Congress should be meddling in interest-rate decisions, or micro-managing bank regulation. Nor do I think we should all don tin-foil hats and start ranting about the Trilateral Commission. Yet when unelected and unaccountable agencies pick banking winners while trying to end-run Congress, even as taxpayers are forced to lend, spend and guarantee about $8 trillion to prop up the financial system, our collective blood should boil.

01-30-2010, 05:49 PM	#7
mhgaffney Ring of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 9,764	The murder of JFK damaged our nation -- and everyone in it. It was not only a crime -- it was a high crime -- pulled off in broad daylight -- in front of the whole world -- by a conspiracy of evil doers who had (and have) total contempt for the American people and for the US Constitution. The crime was never solved. FYI, there is no state of limitations for murder. No surprise that Qgs' sympathies lie with the powers that be -- including the banksters, neo cons and Zionists -- never with the people and never with the Constitution. JFK's unsolved murder continues to be important for another reason. He was the last US president who actually formulated monetary policy. One of JFK's biggest battles was with the fed. His successor -- LBJ surrendered monetary policy to the fed -- and no surprise -- thus began the decline that has continued ever since -- and which has greatly accelerated in recent years. We need to revive the history that's disappeared down the memory hole. MHG Last edited by mhgaffney; 01-30-2010 at 05:52 PM..*

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01-29-2010, 05:24 PM	#2
mhgaffney Ring of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 9,764	After you've imbibed the above, check out this short talk by JFK about secret societies. This was given in 1963 -- just a few months before JFK was snuffed. I always thought JFK was talking about the Commies. I was wrong. JFK was onto these guys way back when. That's no doubt why they snuffed him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7l6i4w11U

01-30-2010, 09:00 AM	#4
W*GS Ring of Famer Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 19,499	gaff-o strokes it 'til its raw when he thinks something verifies his paranoid fantasies.

01-30-2010, 05:09 PM	#5
mhgaffney Ring of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 9,764	No, you should listen to the speech again. If JFK had meant the Soviets he would have referred to this directly in the speech. He does not -- he is talking through inference here -- between the lines. The speech was given in 1963. This was AFTER the Cuban Missile CRisis (Oct 62) that had such a major impact on JFK. After the crisis -- in which we came within a whisker of nuclear war -- JFK started to change. In the last 6-8 months of his life he took steps to end the Viet Nam War, started a back door dialogue with Kruschev, decided to shut down the CIA, and to end the Colf War and prepare the American people to live in peace. These were radical moves,. As we know he did not live to finish them. Ro is right that JFK started as a COld Warrior. But the Cuban Missile Crisis changed him radically. IT's why he had to die. As usual, Ro sees what he WANTS to see. It's always the same story -- a story of ignorance and arrogance on the part of we civilized westerners with respect to everybody else.

01-30-2010, 07:34 PM	#9
mhgaffney Ring of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 9,764	Pretty sure and pretty wrong.

01-31-2010, 01:09 PM	#11
W*GS Ring of Famer Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 19,499

01-31-2010, 06:37 PM	#15
baja It is what it Is. Pay attention. Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 53,762 Adopt-a-Bronco: Buy My Book	I am opening up building sites on my ranch for survival homes any interest?

01-31-2010, 07:17 PM	#17
baja It is what it Is. Pay attention. Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 53,762 Adopt-a-Bronco: Buy My Book	great my friend and you?