God rested. But he got bored and he said to himself, "Ah, let me fool around with this creation stuff and make a few things that re a bit different. And so he made aardvarks, and marsupials and all sorts of weird, one-of-a-kind animals. He also fooled around with humans, making a sub-species that looked like regular humans but were considerably less intelligent--stupid really--just for amusement. Today, we call this sub-species Congressmen.
They were on full display today as the Townes committee interviewed The Suit. By the by, have you noticed that Mr. Townes looks exactly like Howdy Doody? Honest to God I was looking for Buffalo Bob Smith to pop up behind this guy. SURPRISE! Look, I pull this string and his mouth moves! Intellectually, Mr. Townes is one of the stars so it is no surprise that The Suit put on a terrific show. When he's on, he's on and give him a bunch of straight men like this and brother, he was ON!
The subject was the AIG situation and it became immediately apparent that having received 250,000 subpoenaed not one congressperson had read more than a page. My son, who works within the Beltway hit it right on the head:
"Dad, all these people do is raise money for reelection. They have 20+ staffers and do what the staffers tell them to do." He should know; he was a staffer.
As you know I think the NY Fed could have done better with the AIG situation. I think that the inability of the Fed to guarantee the AIG obligations as it would have been illegal for them to do so should have led them to a market based effort involving making a market in the CDOs central to the issue. I do not know whether this was considered but having failed to adopt that approach the Fed really had little leverage against the banks. What did come out today that was not generally well known was that the rating agencies informed the Fed right in the middle of the mess that they were about to downgrade AIG which, had it occurred, would have created an event of default not only as to the CDOs but as to the insurance business as well. AIG was not the only insurance company involved in this business. The reaction of the market would have been catastrophic. I don't like Mr. Geithner; I don't think he should have been appointed to his present position but then he got it right. Had any of these so-called law makers had been asked to make a decision such as that the people in New York were asked to make I suspect they would have soiled themselves. They are disgraceful and they are liars as well. Practically every one of them accused the Fed of hiding the fact that the banks were being paid 100 cents on the dollar. Crap. I cursory reading of the Times and the Journal would show that the full payout had been reported for days. EVERYONE knew except these clowns.
The Suit also said something that should have sent chills down the spine of every one of these fools but of course they missed it. Speaking to the point as to who was watching the store Geithner said that the insurance commissioners in probably 30 states had no idea in what businesses the companies they oversaw were involved. No reaction. None. Zip. Nada. And this is the financial oversight committee of the Congress of the United States. We're doomed.
You have zero understanding of what you are talking about but rather are just slurping down the lies Geithner and his cronies are spoonfeeding you, and then making matters worse by doing whoever reads this blog a disservice in repeating them. The insurance companies subject to state regulation were seperate entities than the parent holding company, and unlike this entity, they were indeed well capitalized. Nor would they be subject to 'default' by a downgrade at the holding company as Mr. Geithner so claimed. The state insurance regulators have, and continue, to perform excellent in their duties.
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