COMEDY GOLD: Mark To Market With Alan Grayson

'Let's change the length of inches so I'm shorter!'

Brilliant stuff from Grayson.  We had never seen this clip until this morning.  Fair value, mark to market, FAS 157 nonsense exposed.  Robert Herz of FASB admits to widespread insolvency in the banking sector, and tells a classic story.

The witnesses for this hearing were:

Mr. James Kroeker, Acting Chief Accountant, SEC
Mr. Robert Herz, Chairman, Financial Accounting Standards Board
Mr. Kevin Bailey, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Comments

[SKINFLINT]

More funny stuff from Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2012-10-22/digital-heckling-vox-populi.html#slide11

[The Verve]

No one even talks about this anymore. It's like the accounting change never happened, and we've always lived in a land of make believe and purple unicorns.

[Cheyenne]

The Verve--

Right on. These same unicornists talk about the "recovery" without ever acknowledging the unprecedented trillions of dollars pumped into the banks by the Fed and about the alleged bounce back in housing without mentioning the record-low mortgage rates AND the astronomical seasonal adjustments that are the very foundation of these fantasies.

The 389K new home sales figure for September, for example, is heralded by the media, which omits both the fact that the unadjusted figure was 31K (!!!) and the fact that the Census Bureau has NEVER explained the methodology behind such adjustments.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-24/new-home-sales-highest-april-2010-until-one-reads-fine-print

Does the U.S. financial media serve ANY function beyond concealing the cirmes and insolvency of Wall Street?

[Josie]

I'm struck by 2 things: 1. Grayson was one of a few who "got it", and 2. You get the sense that Hertz was audibly chuckling because he knew that this whole f'ing thing was a ruse to conceal insolvency and that the squeaky wheels were the insolvent wheels.

And if I could read Hertz mind a little: he was thinking that the people have no idea how truly f'ed up things are and how f'ed we are and will be for a long while...

[SKINFLINT]

Yet even more comedy. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/federal-prosecutors-sue-bank-of-america-over-mortgage-program/

[SKINFLINT]

Just another one of those stories that keep getting more creepy. Mr. Lewis has touched on this before and just gives credence to nasty stuhttp://news.msn.com/world/jimmy-savile-how-could-allegations-go-unnoticed/ff that the rich and famous get away with. Friends of royalty, blessed by the pope etc etc.

[Cheyenne]

This is beyond disgusting. Elizabeth Warren puts a simple question to the heads of the nation's top financial regulatory bodies: when was the last time your agency took a Wall Street bank to trial?

Watch these cowards shit themselves with absolute fear as they try to duck the question. For anyone wondering if these traitors are anything less than fully aware that they're willfully betraying the public's trust, this video will remove all doubts:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/14/172045516/watch-sen-elizabeth-warren-grills-regulators-on-taking-banks-to-trial

[DailyBail]

Hadn't seen that. Been waiting for her to make some noise.

[john]

DB and Cheyenne, you really need to see this...(includes video).

http://www.necn.com/02/16/13/Democratic-candidates-strive-to-stand-ou/landing_politics.html?blockID=831593&feedID=11106

[snip]


"I supported the position which John Kerry and Elizabeth Warren had, that that legislation was necessary to avoid the collapse of the entire financial system," said Markey.

Lynch voted three times against that bill and still thinks it was wrong.

[Cheyenne]

I think Warren's position was that a bailout was unavoidable but the money being handed over with no strings attached was ridiculous. If my recollection of her position is correct, Warren is totally wrong about the necessity of the bailout. The lies propping up ever single bailout argument ever made have been debunked from so many different angles that I've lost count of them. Moreover, no one has ever produced a shred of evidence to support the notion that the system would have collapsed (unless "system" is synonymous with "bonuses for leeches no matter what"). This vacuum of evidence is what drives the relentless propaganda of a TARP Super-Jesus who saved the world, which, despite having been hammered into the eye sockets of TV watchers every night for 4+ years, has utterly backfired because the system is so patently rigged to favor the parasites at everyone else's expense.

In any event, Warren is a lot like Barofsky in that she showed up only AFTER Congress shivved Main Street in the liver by voting for TARP to perform the sickening task of minimizing fraud, etc. in the disbursement of funds.. Her COP reports (like Barofsky's SIGTARP reports) were absolutely scathing towards the parasite bankers. I doubt this Markey character has read so much as a footnote in either set of reports.

[SKINFLINT]

One of the things that get constantly hammered as well is this, the illicit drug money kept the banks afloat. If that were the case then why did they need our 700bn. They would not have gone belly up even without our money.

[Cheyenne]

Good point, SKIN: the case against TARP gets even stronger with the evidence piling up in hindsight. We can also add in the backdoor bailouts to AIG's counterparties AND the secret Fed loans--both of which Geithner and the Fed fought tooth and nail to keep concealed from the public. Anyone who now contends that TARP was necessary is either an idiot or a liar.

[Josie]

Mark Pittman knew The Fed was the key to the bailout, not TARP. The AIG counter party full payout (still cannot believe that one!), TALF, ZERO clawbacks, record bonuses in 2010, ZERO prosecutions of fraudulent crooks (Fuld, Cassano, Mozilo, Raines, etc., other than ponzi schemers and inside info traders), wrist slaps from the SEC, Lehman repo accounting, and on and on and on...

Shit just keeps piling up, along with our deficits and debt...

[Sagebrush]

As more and more evidence becomes available it would seem that, from the White House to Wall Street, including the U.S. Congress, the credit rating co.'s, the mortgage servicing co.'s, regulation and enforcement including the Department Of Justice, the Wall Street Banks and the Federal Reserve, all are doing their best to totally screw the American People. Is it ever going to stop, or should we accept the fact there is a new world order and we have no part in it, except to get screwed out of everything we have or ever will have to keep the parasites rolling in wealth???

[Cheyenne]

Everyone should accept the inevitablity of the financial system collapsing into dust, until which time any asset not nailed down or backed by lead will continue to be stolen. There is no NWO, just a handful of people who manage the Ponzi scheme known as the global financial system. The vast majority of their agents who believe their part of this club are gonna learn the hard way.what self-delusion means.