• Surprise, surprise: Many banks misuse their TARP subsidies.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission's case against Mark Cuban is dismissed.
• The Drug Enforcement Administration unleashes its own surge in Afghanistan.
• Former Guantanamo prisoners prepare to sue George W. Bush.
• Four more banks shut down.
• South African scientists launch clinical trials for an AIDS vaccine.
What exactly are we doing in Afghanistan again? I dont get
it.
RT
www.anonymize.tk
Don't know why the US is there but the British are there so
their taxpayers can build Ferris Wheels and Womans Parks
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/07/paradise-lost.html
The bit on misusing TARP subsidies is a little misleading.
Treasury's position is pretty accurate: asking them to track the
results of specific dollars given to banks is useless. Sort of like
the shell game with the tobacco settlement funds that said states
had to fund health and prevention programs with them but which in
fact simply meant that they funded those programs entirely out of
the settlement funds and added the funds that had previously funded
them back into the general fund, thus legally complying with the
settlement terms without actually having to do anything other than
enrich the general fund.
For similar reasons, if a bank buys another bank, it's essentially
meaningless to tell them that they can't do it with TARP funds
(versus with other money they have sitting somewhere), because they
can always say that the TARP funds went to loans but they bought
the other bank with their own money, even though they wouldn't have
had the money to buy the other bank without the TARP funds.
So are they misusing the funds? Well, probably yes, but are they
misusing them in a legal sense? Probably not.
What exactly are we doing in Afghanistan again? I dont get
it.
You're no the only
one.
Surprise, surprise: Many banks misuse their TARP
subsidies.
Irony: The ally bank advertisement I see here. Aren't
they being accused of "misusing" TARP funds?
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 financial rescue program.
...
Roughly 80 percent of respondents, or 300 banks, also said at least some of the money had supported new lending.
Nobody, I mean absolutely no-fucking-body, could have foreseen this
development.
*sigh*
With opium production soaring, and funding Taliban activities, the U.S. is sending dozens of DEA agents to help break trafficking rings, a shift in policy from crop eradication.
Finally the right people© are in charge and the narcotics
trade in Afghanistan will eradicated.
psst! Wanna buy a bridge?
The best part of the TARP story is not that the banks are
(mis)using funds, but that the Treasury has given up any semblance
of trying to provide the vaunted transparency that has be come the
hallmark of the this administration.
In a written response, the Treasury again rejected that call.
Officials have taken the view that the exact use of the federal aid
cannot be tracked because money given to a bank is like water
poured into an ocean.
South African scientists launch clinical trials for an AIDS vaccine.
I'll keep my fingers crossed. Were I a theist I'd be praying for
success.
Officials have taken the view that the exact use of the
federal aid cannot be tracked because money given to a bank is like
water poured into an ocean.
Well, yes. Does the word fungible mean anything to anybody?
Many counter-narcotics officials, current and former,
praised the DEA expansion, which they said they had pushed for
since late 2006 but had faced seeming indifference or outright
opposition from others in the Bush administration, including
elements of the military and intelligence communities.
"Indifference or outright opposition from the military and
intelligence communities"?
How can this be?
"Many counter-narcotics officials, current and former, praised
the DEA expansion, which they said they had pushed for since late
2006 but had faced seeming indifference or outright opposition from
others in the Bush administration, including elements of the
military and intelligence communities."
Well, for all their faults, the Military and intelligence
communities actually know how to fight a fucking war. And turning
possible allies or at least non-threats in to enemies is generally
the smart thing to do. Heaven forbid this stop a good drug crusade
though!
Fucking idiots.
I don't think fungibility is the issue. If the banks were
required to keep their TARP funds in separate accounts, it would be
a relatively easy matter to track whether those funds were
transferred to one account to cover liabilities, or another to
issue new loans.
Otherwise it's like giving your alcoholic brother-in-law a $50, but
only after he crosses his heart to use it to pay rent.
Fungibility is an issue, but, unlike a government institution, a private entity like a bank is constrained by law (and GAAP) from limitless spending. If the TARP money is not there, they cannot do everything they're doing now. One can reasonably speculate as to what they would or would not be up to.
The bit on misusing TARP subsidies is a little misleading.
Treasury's position is pretty accurate: asking them to track the
results of specific dollars given to banks is useless.
The lack of TARP accountability isn't the biggest money-laundering
operation in history. AIG is. All the money given to AIG is going
right out the back door to the counterparties on busted derivatives
(yeah, Goldman, I'm looking at you) via all those insurance polices
AIG wrote on the derivatives. AIG was bailed out to give cover to a
massive wealth transfer to the big Wall Street players.
Irony: The ally bank advertisement I see here. Aren't they
being accused of "misusing" TARP funds?
If you consider zombie banks to be a misuse of TARP funds, then
yes. Ally GMAC should be a poster child for Tarp
misuse.
• Surprise, surprise: Many banks misuse their TARP
subsidies.
Money freely given without rules was used freely. The government
supported consolidation of banks, something it has done since
before the FDIC came into existence.
The fact they are turning a profit so quickly and the whole GS
ordeal is troubling to say the least.
Can I put in a plug for an older article I ran across awhile
back?
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon1030hh.html
...As economist Russell Roberts of George Mason University points
out, Bank of America reported that nonperforming CRA-eligible loans
were a significant drag on its third-quarter 2008 income. Its
earnings report states: "We continue to see deterioration in our
community reinvestment act portfolio which totals some 7 percent of
the residential book. . . . The annualized loss rate from the CRA
book was 1.26 percent and represented 29 percent of the residential
mortgage net losses." This is a far cry from the advocates'
standard line that CRA loans, while less lucrative than standard
mortgages, are still profitable. ...
For the love of all that's holy, somebody please include counting jobs created or saved to Herbert M. Allison Jr's list of duties.
This is Bullshit!
When the TCF Bank Stadium opens in less than two months, the
University of Minnesota plans to implement a system to deter
alcohol-related problems by administering breathalyzers to prior
offenders.
The program, called "Check BAC" - as in blood alcohol content - is
just one of the many steps the University and police are taking to
prepare for the inevitable trouble that will come with bringing
football back to campus. University police have been travelling
around the Big Ten looking for advice on alcohol enforcement and
traffic control to get ready.
Check BAC is modeled after a University of Wisconsin-Madison
program. If a student is caught for underage consumption or ejected
from the stadium for public intoxication, they are automatically
enrolled in the program. If the student comes back to a game that
same season, they will be required to provide a breath sample on a
portable breath tester.
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/07/14/university-police-prepare-campus-football
But- there's nothing in the Constitution about a right to watch college football (drunk or otherwise)!
I don't think fungibility is the issue. If the banks were
required to keep their TARP funds in separate accounts, it would be
a relatively easy matter to track whether those funds were
transferred to one account to cover liabilities, or another to
issue new loans.
Oh, come now. We put all the TARP money in this account. We only
use the TARP money for making loans. Every other red cent we would
have used to make loans is now being used to acquire SmallBank. The
money from TARP we don't loan is used as collateral for the
remaining debt to buy SmallBank. See how easy that was?
"""If a student is caught for underage consumption or ejected
from the stadium for public intoxication, they are automatically
enrolled in the program. If the student comes back to a game that
same season, they will be required to provide a breath sample on a
portable breath tester.""
How do the cops know if your are enrolled in the program? Are they
going to check every ID and compare it to a database?
"How do the cops know if your are enrolled in the program? Are
they going to check every ID and compare it to a database?"
Sounds about right.
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