Posts tagged “Bailouts”
Seven Compelling Reasons Why the Wealthy Should be Taxed More (right now)
Obama’s new stimulus package includes components that will supposedly raise taxes on those above 200k, and includes a “Warren Buffett” clause concerning capital gains tax. The merits of the specific plan will have to wait, as we don’t know the specifics yet. However, the debate surrounding the abstract ideas of raising taxes on only the [...]
Republican Bailout Rhetoric
Mike Pence is a member of the Republican Congressional leadership, specifically, chairman of the House Republican Conference. That seems to mean he lies for a living. This is how he characterized the Wall Street reform bill yesterday morning: The American people are tired of runaway federal spending, borrowing and bailouts. The legislation being considered by [...]
More Citigroup-inspired Finance Illiteracy
I don’t know what it is about Citigroup that inspires journalists at reputable media outlets to spout unadulerated garbage, but there seems to be a lot of it going around. Yesterday’s prize went to The Washington Post and David Cho. That prompted a long-time reader to draw my attention to a December 2009 story in [...]
Balderdash In The National Press
It’s not even the end of March, but I’m willing to back this against all comers for the dumbest statement we’ll read in a major newspaper all year: Among the banks that rule Wall Street, Citigroup got a bailout that was bigger than the rest. Now the company is about to pay a king’s ransom [...]
A Trickle, Not A Flood
For a while, troubled banks and automakers were shouting themselves hoarse arguing that their survival depended on continuing to pay humongous salaries to their top executives. If the mean, petty and thoroughly shortsighted Obama administration allowed Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master for executive compensation at corporations receiving federal aid, to cut back compensation below [...]
Fun With Presidential Appointments
I don’t think I’ve been surprised to the upside about anything that Obama has ever done, but this comes the closest: President Obama will renominate Dawn Johnsen to serve as one of the Justice Department’s top officials, TPMDC has learned. A White House official confirms that Obama will renominate Johnsen, along with a handful of [...]
Funds Flow Statements By TARP Banks
This will, no doubt, come as a total surprise and a very rude shock: Many of the banks that got federal aid to support increased lending have instead used some of the money to make investments, repay debts or buy other banks, according to a new report from the special inspector general overseeing the government’s [...]
Taibbi
The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits — Taibblog (7/16/09): Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered [...]
Where Getting Doubly Screwed Leads to Awesome Contemplation
(1) Doubly Screwed Let it never be said that Geithner is not a true disciple of Hank Paulson. Paulson screwed us on the way in, when we bought all those lovely securities in troubled banks for way more than they were worth then: The Treasury secretary has made 174 purchases of banks’ preferred shares that [...]
A Ph.D. In Simply Not Getting It
On his resume, Vikram Pandit only claims to have a Ph.D. in Finance from Columbia Business School. But it is increasingly becoming clear that he must also have a second Ph.D., even though he doesn’t like to boast about it. A Ph.D. in Simply Not Getting It. After all those losses and bailouts, rank-and-file employees [...]