The Hammer Gets Hit By A Tree
In light of the Goldman theft detailed last month, we are reposting this story. This is a brilliant attack. Everything you've read about AIG and Goldman pertains to this. Paulson is annihilated by Congressman Cliff Stearns.
Awesome clip. Please share it anywhere and everywhere across the net. Our only hope to stop the heist will come from greater awareness. Thank you.
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Video - Cliff Stearns questions Hank Paulson - July 2009
Paulson gets abused in this clip, to the point of stuttering. In a general sense, all pertaining to his role in certain decisions at Treasury that helped Goldman.
Everything is in here: the AIG-Goldman conduit, Lehman's failure, Paulson's tax-free $700 million stock sale, Geithner's role with AIG, various conflicts of interest, political capture, the TARP switcharoo and Goldman's FDIC debt guarantee.
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From over 15,000 videos on the site this is still one of our favorites. Until the day Paulson is indicted for crimes against humanity, this is the closest we'll see him to a courtroom. Seeking revenge as we do, daily, ritualistically, painfully, we wondered how could we hurt him and move the court date closer. The most effective strategy is an email campaign. Like all campaigns, it requires a few workhorses in the beginning; some adept folks who are willing to send this link to hundreds of others, essentially to everyone in their email address books. Copy/paste and blast away. We thank each and everyone in advance for your help.
Also check out video of Paulson and Marcy Kaptur...
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Meet Hank the Hammer...
Video: Former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson has a message for you...
We haven't forgotten the crimes against humanity of former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson and his tax-free $700 million. We put everything that's important about your former TARP-loving Treasury Secretary into a 90-second comedy short. Take a look!
Read about Paulson's role in the SEC rule change that allowed leverage to explode on Wall Street. This single act played a devastating, but rarely-mentioned role in bringing down the system.
Background reading...
Jun 7, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Reader Comments (54)
One piece of democracy that works, and separates America from an autocracy is that these people can be made to answer for what they have done. But, if all he gets is a a few questions asked of him, what is the point? He gave away how many billions $ to his friends?
If he does not go to jail then you really have to ask, what's the point?
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-greatest-hits.html
Liar or dumbass?
I've thought about your exact Q quite a bit and I was watching intently every single day last year, and the answer I've come up with is dumbass.
Guys like Paulson, Thain, Stan O'Neil, Chuck Prince, Bob Rubin, Jimmy Cayne, Fuld and others were disconnected from what their firms were holding. Paulson was an investment banker and never a trader...his career was built on doing deals, not trading securitized derivatives...
Evidence has shown that even the Risk MGMT. departments at these banks were almost completely in the dark about the cesspools of assets both on and off their balance sheets.
Bernanke and Geithner were caught massively unaware as well and the NY Fed (which TG ran) was in charge of regulating Wall Street specifically.
So none of these fools saw it coming...I think Paulson didn't understand the scope of the problem until mid August to September of last year.
He recognized there was a problem but greatly underestimated it b/c he didn't take the time to understand the magnitude of the bubble and the coming foreclosure tidal wave.
I think about this alot, too. Dumbass or liar? (Sounds like a party game.) It really is hard to tell sometimes, but that's the world we live in. The people in office (and in the corner office) can neither be trusted for their competence nor for their honesty. I appreciate your perspective, because most of us are complete and total outsiders looking in. It's hard to know when we are being paranoid or when we're being naive. But what you say about Paulson sounds plausible. Janet Tavakoli has said similar things about Bob Rubin. I wonder about the dates with Paulson, though. Kashkari says that they "knew" a big bailout would be needed from Congress sometime early in 2008, but that they waited until September when things were getting really bad before they asked for the funds.
I told everyone who would listen in the Summer of 2006 that AIG, fannie and freddie would all be wiped out...i also knew every investment bank and most commercial banks would eventually become effectively insolvent...the leverage was just too great to withstand the asset plunge....
Think about it...at 30:1 leverage, your assets only have to decline 4% in value and your equity is wiped out...
What surprised me was the scope...I knew mortgage assets and securitized versions thereof would all become close to worthless, but I did not anticipate that all other asset classes would lose 1/2 to 3/4 of their value as well...
I expected stocks to get smoked, but I didn't see the tsunami coming to private equity, or leveraged loans for example. If you area a bank or some massive endowment that owns a chunk of PE assets, you are lucky to get 30 cents on the dollar trying to unload that crap now.
But in retrospect it makes great sense...the destruction of equity and teh need to raise capital forced the sale of other assets on a massive scale...nothing was spared.
I put an article into links last week about what has happened on teh Antiques Roadshow for instance...values for 18th century end tables have fallen from $15k to less than $500 bucks...that's some serious asset deflation...and speaks volumes about the scope of the bubble before it popped...
In the first summary video, Kashkari acknowledges that Paulson and Bernanke both knew they would need to pursue a bailout and agonized over timing because they were uncertain the political will was there.
01:35 "It was not until probably January of 2008 were we began serious work contingency planning that if the correction was so bad that the private market s would become unwilling to provide capital to the financial system, there might come a time when the Federal Government would have to step in to stabilize the financial system."
02:55 "So the toughest challenge for Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke was when to go to congress. When can we go when we know we are going to get the authority. Because if we go and we don't get it, that could be very damaging."
That or he is so caught up in the web of deceit that he can't tell the illusion from reality. Still inexcusable, since he surely has hundreds if not thousands pointing out the distinction to him.
Thanks for finding that...I either didn't watch that entire interview or had forgotten it...great stuff...
Do you use a web service to translate video into transcripts or was it just the honest hard work, of an American patriot fighting for the remaining vestiges of truth and justice in his once proud land?
Either way, I thank you.
No, I don't use a web service to translate video into transcripts for any of my posts, hence the numerous syntax and spelling errors. You probably could get Dragon NaturallySpeaking or something like it to get basic transcripts, but it may be more effort that it is worth than by just doing it the old fashioned way. It is just the honest hard work, of an American patriot fighting for the remaining vestiges of truth and justice in his once proud land. You are more than welcome. It's the least I can do as a repayment in kind to all of your own blood, sweat, and tears on this site.
Thanks for finding that Kashkari quote -- I've been away from "the internets" all day.
I was pretty shocked by Kashkari's statements when I watched this back then. See, that's the perfect example of how difficult it is to play Dumbass or Liar. I had assumed Bernanke was a definite Dumbass, but with Paulson I wasn't so sure (I'm still not completely sure). Now I know (if Kashkari is to be believed) that both Bernanke and Paulson are definite Liars if not also Dumbasses -- "subprime is contained", "the banking system is sound". What makes me angry -- what doesn't these days? -- is all the clear and obvious happy talk right up until September 15. Which makes me wonder whether Kashkari's revelation was calculated or just a slip. If the MSM knew what they were doing, or weren't simply craven, they could do a whole mini-series on What Did Paulson and Bernanke Know...And When Did They Know It? Probably won't happen. Dylan Ratigan might take it up... but probably nobody else.
I would expect no less from our official Hearst/Rockefeller/Rothschild/Murdoch/Luce propaganda machine. I pray someone like Dylan Ratigan will take up the Paulson/Bernanke what did they know and when cause.
Positions of Dr. Paul’s that would help achieve this objective include:
1. Getting rid of the Federal Reserve, which functions as the financial enabler of war, as well as its head-coach.
2. Forcing politicians in favor of war to make a formal declaration of war, as specified in the Constitution.
To which I would add:
3. Patriotism requires that the profit-motive be put-aside in time of war. Therefore, financially profiting from a soldier’s courage, and, possibly, from the sacrifice of a soldier’s life, should be forbidden by law.
4. By law, every elected representative espousing war must either personally ship-off to battle, or, send a close family member in his stead.
The Ron Paul Revolution is, among other things, a revolution to reclaim our original American spirit, a spirit mangled, at least since the time of Lincoln, by the passive acceptance, and tacit encouragement, of state-sponsored mass-murder for profit.
Paulson did not look good, physically. Every last bit of decency he may have had has dried up and he's running on pure evil. I predict a stroke by next July. ...or a heart attack.
So what you're saying is after someone here commits murder, you'll be happy to come along and shoot the already-dead bodies...
You're quite the revolutionary. Whoa.
Addicted to Internet screams and bashing each other and thinking a revolution will take care itself?lol
What a Bamboozled Generation?lol
Dollar to Hit 50 Yen, Cease as Reserve, Sumitomo Says (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a_A5nqmw9Dq8
According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing last month in the UK Telegraph, U.S. bank credit and M3 (the broadest measure of the money supply) contracted over the summer at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression. In the summer quarter, U.S. bank loans fell at an annual pace of almost 14 percent. “There has been nothing like this in the USA since the 1930s,” said Professor Tim Congdon of International Monetary Research. “The rapid destruction of money balances is madness.”
Chartered banks are allowed to create credit on their books equal to many times their deposit base, but lately they haven’t been doing it. In more normal times, one dollar in base money has been fanned by the banks into $8.50 in loans. Today, one dollar in base money produces only one dollar in loans. Although the Fed has been frantically pushing cash into the banks, it can’t make them lend to consumers.
You're on a comment rampage. Anger is good. Cultivate it. Nurture it. Sharpen thy pitchfork. The peasants are pissed off and we might just win this time.
Kaptur is my Commander in Chief and I asked 15 families to stop all loan payments to Banker terrorists and the revolt is on.Now do you folks here have the balls to revolt now?
Kaptur is not reading here...........
Contact her office , join the revolution
What do you mean -- I mean, what did you convince them to do? Mortgages, credit cards...? And how did you get in contact with 15 indebted families?
James this question makes me laugh?
In California in any given town , it is easy to find 15 families in just one neighbor hood.
My town, hit hard properties below construction cost and banks holding back inventory flood.
hang them high folks..now
CHICAGO MOB SHILL=OBAMA=PUPPERT OF BANKER TERRORSIST
revolution is not unleashed with screams on yahoo board:time to talk and unite neighborhoods now
This is not my America
Im fed up with this extreme immoral greed from the elites and plutocrats running our system. From GS and the banks stealing $700B of taxpayer money meanwhile running a ten % unemployment, outsourcing of jobs and more. No regulations in the financial sector is insane.
To a epidemic of diabetes in America due to slave food fastfood on every corner making Americans sick and overweight. What choice do they have? MCD, Taco Bell, pizza chains, fried chicken chains, chinese food chains, sub sandwhich chains--they are all unhealthy.
Then the so called "health insurance industry" turns down my fellow Americans for so called preexisting conditions so Americans cant even get health care. Lobbyists spend millions and billions to make sure average Americans cant get health care and are gouged on credit cards anf the like.
Lastly I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism and it pains me greatly to seee in the corporations own writing they look at my fellow Americans as peasants.
Enough is enough this is what revolutions are made of.
My Commander in Chief is KAPTUR
OBAMA=CRIMINAL=TREASON
Cash Every Check, carry cash, pay with cash, strangle the Banker Crooks: Our own Bail out has begun.
Best Advice For All True Americans!!!
Stop paying ALL credit cards and stop using ALL ATM cards. Everytime you swip an ATM card the banks get a fee. Pay everything in cash, invest in real tangible private assets like gold snd silver, and UNPLUG from the f*cking matrix!!!!!
Re: the dumbass or liar debate... um, c. all of the above.
Why should I, the tax payer be paying SOME OTHER person's mortgage when I don't even own a house? In fact, why should I... a renter be making life hard for myself for keeping real estate artificially inflated?
Whatever mistakes were made. The one right decision was not to throw tax payer money buy paying off other people's mortgages.
Jake, While I agree with your statement regarding paying other peoples mortgages, I have to say I would rather have seen some of my neighbors not have to pull their kids out of school, loose their house and move across town to some apartment verses these a-holes taking hundreds and hundreds of billions of our tax dollars and giving it to these damn companies so that their ivy league buddies could get their big ass bonus this year. I don't know if Stearns actually would have voted for a program to buy down the principal on peoples mortgages, but I know he thinks that would have been a far better idea than what actually took place. For that I cannot fault him.
The debate you're having is one we've had here for months...ultimately, i say no bailouts for anyone...if you said we have to help one of the 2 sides, i would of course not choose the banks and offer help in a form that benefits everyone out there NOT JUST houseowners...renters get screwed 7 ways to Sunday and there's no end in sight...
I agree. My business is doing about 35% of what it was a couple of years ago. I quit looking for my bailout check a long time ago. Fortunately I have always been frugal and lived well within my means. So far I am weathering the storm, but I can't stand hearing someone driving around in their brand new BMW, living in their big McMansion, with their four car garage full of every toy you can think of, all of which is purchased on credit. Then they start whining about wanting some help with their mortgage. I really do feel sorry for them, because I can't imaging how they sleep at night worrying about all of their stuff, but I also think maybe they will learn something out of this experience and we'll all be a little better off for it. I'm glad I found this site, great discussions.
READ THESE COURT DOCUMENTS!
JPMorgan admits that the FDIC took over a solvent bank in one of the latest court documents...
I'm enclosing a few more documents filed through the BK court in regards to a declaration of Thomas M. Blake (http://www.crai.com/ProfessionalStaff/listingdetails.aspx?id=1276 ).
The declaration can be found in 103-4.pdf at http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3b830df9f3d0e6fce7c82ed4b8f0c380aff12395630f22f3ce018c8114394287
Quoting:
http://wamuequity.org
http://wamuqd.com
http://www.wamu-shareholders-resources.com/wamued.html
http://www.wamucoup.com
http://wamustory.com
tell me, if your own government would lie its ass off in the assasination of its own president, what makes you think anything will happen to one of their corrupt friends in the financial world? nothing.
absolutely nothing.
keep on crying though! :) it makes good comedy. nothing will happy from your worthless crying.
Some of us are trying to make change...
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I have always felt the same...5 minutes are a joke...it's a grandstand...each side should choose a few members and give them 15 minutes each...then let everyone else have 2 minutes to make a statement if they so choose...
That taxpayers bailed out the big banks, who do not need to write down their mortgages. They will now soon own half the residential and commercial real estate in the country after having caused the mess in the first place. This is out of control, and we may still have the Great Depression.
To those people who want to blame it on people who purchased mortgages they can not pay, I would suggest they listen to those group tested phone calls the average Joe got, keeping in mind that your average citizen still believes in professional fiduciary duty and honesty regarding bankers. I took a number of those phone calls, and it often took an hour to find out exactly what the terms were, and I have a masters in Finance.
Bailing out those banks was the worst thing we ever could have done. Without it, mortgages would have gotten repriced in a months, K Street would have gotten a bath, and many of these guys would be gone.