by Catherine Austin Fitts and Carolyn Betts, Esq.
(1) Crime that pays is crime that stays.
There is reason to believe that Wall Street and those they represent are holding loans without collateral, multiple loans secured by the same properties, and other fraudulent instruments among the “troubled assets.” Based on the secret “Treasury Conference Call” with 800 Wall Street insiders, we know the deal proposed to be passed by Congress isn’t the real deal promised to Wall Street.
(2) This smells like obstruction of justice.
Bail-out without due diligence of so called “troubled assets” is a perfect way to hide documentation of financial crimes. It is also a perfect means to launder both the past ill-gotten gains and new federal money spent recklessly and without necessary safeguards and oversight mechanisms. Be very suspicious when they tell you “we just can’t tell what’s in these troubled assets.” We can assure you that the federal government has field offices all across the country that deal with significant amounts of real estate and mortgage assets on a daily basis. If Treasury refuses for more than a decade to comply with the laws, with approximately $4 trillion missing (and counting), it is not competent to manage $700 billion of taxpayer money while its arm is twisted by Wall Street.
(3) Wall Street owes the federal government money.
We need to get stolen money back from the banks that served as depositories for the US government (including trillions for which the Pentagon and HUD could not account) and punish them, not create another opportunity for them to game the system and engage in criminal enterprises to rob consumers. To the extent there has been regulatory wrong-doing, let’s not let the miscreants leave town with the evidence.
(4) Good guys are shut out.
A bail-out provides no way for honest leaders to come to the fore and use their creativity and expertise to restore balance and integrity to the system or for unproductive and poorly-managed banks that contribute to current over-capacity in the banking system to die a dignified death.
(5) This results in more investment in the “bubble economy.”
Spending massive amounts on non-productive uses (“buying” worthless credit default swaps, mortgages with no collateral and derivatives, which could even include the derivatives used to manipulate the precious metals markets) as opposed to productive uses (repairing infrastructure, creating alternative energy systems, supporting inventing and production of “green” products) is inflationary.
This bail-out will drive prices of food, water and energy up for the people who can least afford it.
(6) Bail-out does not result in capital circulating in healthy ways.
The bail-out of Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies that are getting bigger by the minute by swallowing up other failing financial institutions (and creating more institutions that are “too big to fail”) does not result in trickle-down to those whose money was stolen in recent swindles (S&L, dot.com, current housing crisis), i.e., the taxpayers/middle class and working poor.
(7) These arrangements will result in more corruption.
Centralized “fixes” are sure to result in black holes, no-bid contracts and other scandals.
(8) The bail-out drains the real economy, rather than invests in the real economy.
The US economy can’t be productive or grow if consumers don’t have jobs and can’t afford to purchase goods and services. Real stimulation of Main Street is accomplished through productive investment, not bail-outs that shift money to unproductive sectors. We should use all of our precious resources to reinvest in our people in the real economy.
(9) It props up sectors that need to downsize and consolidate.
There is significant overcapacity in the financial and banking sectors. Brainpower and talent needs to stop blowing financial bubbles and shift to economic activities that create real value.
(10) It is a temporary “fix” to keep Wall Street afloat until after the election.
Our resources are better invested in permanent, long-term solutions. This bail-out will not fix anything. Rather, it will help the perpetrators get away and ensure that the ultimate day of reckoning is worse.
The Administration wants to drain the real economy to bail out Wall Street. It seems to us that the more appropriate plan would be to require Wall Street to return the $4 trillion plus that is missing and use that to rebuild the real economy.
We think the time has come to reverse the flow. Go to any business school in the country. That is what they teach. Money should move out of unproductive sectors into productive sectors. The bail-out does just the opposite.
“Just say NO!”
Related Reading:
Bailout Mo’ Money Catherine’s Blog, March 11, 2009
When we talk about how Wall Street lost more than $1 Trillion dollars when the House didn’t pass the bill earlier this week, keep something in mind — Money doesn’t just “vanish.” It didn’t vaporize into thin air. For everyone who lost money, somebody else gained. Follow the money, and you’ll soon realize what is really going on here. All we’re seeing in the media is a puppet show.
I would point out that certain elements of our Founding Fathers would have revolted over this level of Government intrusion…and for good reason. They risked their lives by signing the Declaration of Independence, they fought, some died, some went broke, but in short, they all risked everything so that we may have a free REPUBLIC. This entire issues should be blinding evidence to anyone with half a brain that we are becoming a socialistic structure where the government (led by the few and the privileged) will determine how you live.
These are dangerous times for our country and too many things we are doing point to this direction. Education, Healthcare, …all these things have experienced significant up ticks in government control in the last 20 years, all supposedly done to ‘help the little guy’. Ask yourself, what in the world of education, healthcare, and now the financial sector has happened in this time period to really make things better on the average person. The answer sadly is nothing.
The fact is lots of people got very very rich dealing in, and selling extremely high risk, highly leveraged debt, cleverly marketed as financial ‘new products’. Those at the SEC and the leaders of such markets were well aware that they were selling very risky paper which had no assets of real value to back them up. (thus the reason Bears, Morgan, Merrill, Sachs all had debt to equity ration ‘exceptions’ granted by the SEC) Those same leaders are today living in million dollar homes, with millions in the bank…….that my friends is where the money went. One does not need to be a Harvard MBA (though that is what they would have you believe) to follow this. It is not complex due to the inherent nature of the transaction or the high math involved. It is complex because it needs to be in order to sell the concept as a solid business practice. They were able to do that long enough to become really rich, really fast. Now you and I (and our children for that matter) are being asked to pay this.
All right, I have defaulted on my homestead mortgage because I wasn’t strong enough to stick to saying no. The amount of the note is worth more than the collateral.
Because the proceeds of the refinance mortgage were not expended upon property improvements I am subject to taxes on the portion of the mortgage note that the lender is unable to recover (taxes on forgiven debt) even though the loan collateral of real property has been surrendured back to the lender.
Thats the way it is in my situation. The guy I blame is the guy in the mirror.
However, I am incensed to read that those who masterminded this system are not subject to the same rate of taxation as I or that they are not going to be held financially or criminally responsible for their actions.
Will they be investigated and prosecuted?
Will they be audited and taxed?
Will they be made subject to the same market forces as I?
We don’t even know how to value the assets that were used as collateral because we can’t even identify the assets.
I think first that there should be an enumeration, a census, a count, an audit of just what actually does exist and then go from there. Those that are solvent are bulwarked, those that are insolvent are allowed to cease.
Reason 11: It is a Bail-Out for zionist bankers and yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, Wikipedia and Facebook.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing at Gitmo.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting illegal wars without declaration.
Impeach them all (both parties) and save this great country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov’t and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000083883
Wake up people, it’s obvious “they” don’t care what you think.
‘When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.’ Thomas Jefferson
REVOLUTION is the Solution!!!
‘God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ – Thomas Jefferson, in letter to William S. Smith, 1787
We have all heard of what the bailout will do for/to us. What I haven’t heard is what will happen if there is no bailout?
They actually have the same members of congress who are guilty of putting laws in place to allow this to happen, in charge of fixing it. Isn’t this like putting the fox in the hen house? I have called Frank and Dodd’s office and told them they need to resign and bring back every penny they reaped from Fannie and Freddie. I got hung up on by Frank’s office and a “thank you” from Dodd’s, and they didn’t bother to take my name or state. They are going to do what they want to. If you are a democrat, you can do anything and skate, witness Frank and his house of ill repute and fixing parking tickets of the johns who visited it (Frank says he didn’t know about it, yeah sure), Rangel who is a tax evader, Jefferson with the $90,000 in his freezer, Wexler who gave a phony Florida address to run for congress, but actually lives in Maryland, and Pelosi using her pac money to pay her husband (they are independently wealthy on their own, but I guess when you get to congress, greed takes over). This was supposed to be the most civil, ethical, bipartisan house ever, yeah sure! Bet Tom Delay and G. Allen wonder what they did so wrong. Their sin was being a republican.