Wall Street Conspiracy Theory - Watch Out
A few comments…
You all know GS did not want bailout funds (TARP). GS and many of the other large banks were forced to take TARP by the Treasury. The Treasury did not want the general population to make a run on banks which needed the bailouts so they forced all the banks to the trough. Finally, GS paid the TARP funds back within eight months.
In fact, GS made money during the crash. Not nice, but they did NOT need taxpayer funds.
Why were the fat cat GS folks at the round table not named? How did the cameras get such good angles? And, to base a Wall Street story on someone claiming the gold market is manipulated by national reserve banks - uh, yeah. The reserve banks (Russia in particular) have most of the gold and they buy and sell it in a small market that is open to manipulation. The market in the 1990s was manipulated in the extreme. That is why I don’t play with the stuff.
Factoids:
Originally expected to cost the U.S. Government $356 billion, the most recent final net estimate of the cost, as of October 5, 2010, will be close to $30 billion.
Of the $245 billion invested in U.S. banks, over $169 billion has been paid back
Note, we are not talking about losing $700 billion.
Note, we are only two years from TARP.
Here is the real story – the AIG bailout...
Why, because it probably insures (or insured) state and municipal bonds.
That insurance allowed states like Kalefornea and New York and Illinois to borrow at low rates even though they cannot get their act together. That insurance 'backstops' the bond if those entities default. Note that there has been NO reporting on that.
That is a conspiracy - of sorts.
Here is the real story – the FED buying crappy Treasury Bonds.
See the above discussion on AIG. The FED is now the market maker for Treasuries. They are not allowing the interest rates to rise in concert with the risk of investment. In affect they are ‘insuring’ the bonds. I bet most national reserve banks are propping their overleveraged governments in a similar manner. They are buying time. They are probably telling these non credit-worthy entities to use the time to improve their balance sheets and increase confidence in their credit worthiness. Instead, we spend like Russian Czars and Hapsburg Emperors.
That is a conspiracy - of sorts.
Maybe this post will be the next Nostradamus prediction!!!
