What Do We Have Here? Bank of America Will Accept California’s IOUs
What a surprise! Bank of America, now owned mostly by taxpayers will be accepting California’s IOUs.
California, one of the most solvent states is of course good for their debts/sarc.
This really should have been expected – a state-run bank accepting an insolvent, soon-to-be-bailed-out-state. Seems like monopoly money to me! This is similar to a false economy, where government interference and regulation make free markets anything but FREE/REAL.
Ponzi scheme has become my favorite catch phrase. It effectively seems as though California is issuing it’s own fake currency called IOUs, although it is already insolvent, to pay back at a later date – of which, will never happen. Bank of America is already suffering and got into trouble the last time it bought a toxic company and toxic assets, as did many others – but here it is doing the same thing again. Insanity = Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
Bank of America Corp. says it will accept warrants issued by California’s state government through July 10.
BofA says the state’s budget crisis prompted its decision.
“To support our customers, while giving the state legislature additional time to pass a budget, we will accept California state-registered warrants — or IOUs — from existing customers and clients,” Charlotte-based BofA (NYSE:BAC) says in a written statement.
It is always important to ask “Why” in these very odd and overwhelming times.
Why would Bank of America, who is already in financial trouble and dire straights, accept California IOUs, which it will probably never see? Why does this seem incredibly like the forced situation of Merrill Lynch? Is Bank of America doing this as a favor to the US government? Should I assume that Bank of America will get more bailout dollars if it accepts such a risky investment?
My biggest “beef” with this scenario: who is supporting Bank of America? The government! And where does the government get its money? The taxpayers! It’s not ok by me, that my money is being used to help bailout California due to its liberal/progressive policies that it enacted on the state.
“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” ~ Frédéric Bastiat 1801-1850 “The Law”
Update: Hsu Found Guilty by Jury; Former Democratic Fundraiser, Hsu, Pleads Guilty to Ponzi Scheme & Fraud
Another small time Bernie Madoff. Norman Hsu pleads guilty!
Former top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to charges he cheated investors out of at least $20 million in a massive Ponzi scheme.
The 58-year-old Hsu (SHOO) pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire and mail fraud before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.
“I knew what I was doing was illegal,” Hsu told the judge.
The former Democratic fundraiser’s list of donors:
- Hillary Clinton
- Barack Obama
- John Kerry
- Barbara Boxer
- Teddy Kennedy
- Al Franken
- Debbie Stabenow
- Dianne Feinstein
- Jay Rockefeller
- Mark Udall
His contributions went 83% to Democrats; 17% to Other, and 0% to Republicans…
For more detail go to the smoking gun- they reported on this story back in December, but it was pushed under the rug because the Madoff case was the big news of the day.
UPDATE:
I reported above that Hsu was in fact a contributer to the Obama campaign – which should matter to Americans. What was not known was another interesting detail as to the extent of their relationship. Something the media will not report:
Businessman Norman Hsu, 58, was convicted by a jury in federal court in New York of violating election laws by making donations to political campaigns in other people’s names. Hsu also pleaded guilty on May 7 to charges of mail fraud and wire fraud in running a Ponzi scheme of up to $60 million.
Jurors convicted Hsu of violating four counts of federal election law between 2004 and 2007. During the trial, prosecutors said Hsu pressured some of the investors involved in his Ponzi scheme to make thousands of dollars in contributions to political candidates on his behalf.
Obama has considerably more of a connection to Hsu than Reuters relates. In 2007, The Washington Post reported in the story “Hsu Steered Major Fundraiser to Obama:”
Before becoming a major bundler for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, disgraced Democratic donor Norman Hsu helped host a 2005 California event for Barack Obama’s political action committee and introduced the senator from Illinois to one of the biggest fundraisers for his presidential bid.
Federal Election Commission records show that Hsu gave $5,000 to Obama’s Hopefund PAC in connection with the fundraiser and that people publicly identified with Hsu and his companies gave an additional $19,500 to the PAC in 2005 and 2006.
Mark Gorenberg, who now sits on Obama’s national finance committee and is one of his biggest fundraisers, said Hsu organized an early 2005 event for the Hopefund and invited him to help raise money.
“He introduced me to Barack Obama,” Gorenberg said of Hsu. “He was working on an event for Barack’s PAC, and he asked me to help, and I did. Barack came up to San Francisco, and [Hsu] introduced him to a bunch of people.”
Obama’s relationship with sleazy hustlers like Norman Hsu doesn’t comport with the narrative of Mr. Hope and Change tailored by the mainstream media. That’s possibly why Hsu’s conviction, which occurred this morning, still hadn’t been reported on CNN as of 4:00 PM (ET) this afternoon.
Chock it up to more hope and change!
Soros: “I’m Having a Very Good Crisis”
This is interesting coming from the man who has predicted the global financial crisis previously, but who also amassed some of the most money in the markets and owns a big chunk of the hedge funds on wall street. It almost seemed a little too convenient that the markets seemed to completely tumble at the end of September, early October before this past election. Soros was one of the biggest backers of President Obama. The same Obama who has claimed that he is a man of the people – that he is tired of those Wall Street fat-cats and evil capitalists. Many of whom, through some other articles posted on this site, and elsewhere, gave to both Obama, the DNC, DCCC, DSCC and other liberal candidates.
There is much to be wary about, and much that was overlooked this past election. Snopes.com and FactCheck.org are both owned and controlled by George Soros, among other organizations…like ACORN.
These bailouts and stimuli are all pay-to-play ponzi schemes created by Wall Street and the hedge fund managers, themselves, who control more on Capitol Hill than many of us know. Did anyone find it the least bit suspicious that the market jumped after Geithner went over his “plan” on Monday but there was barely any volume in the markets? That means that only small handful of people were trading – which is why the “jump” is not real. Shortly before Geithner’s “Toxic Asset” Plan was announced (the Fed printing another trillion dollars), there was a huge amount of options traffic. Playing on insider knowledge of huge government financial moves would be a lot less risky than a straight short bet. And it would pay off a lot quicker. GM & Ford were up, about 40% and 70% in one day, respectively – fishy? I think so!
Hedge funds started out as the anti-establishment response to Wall Street. Some very rich investors had more efficient ways of trading than what had previously existed in the market. Hedge funds, like so many things, started out as a great idea, but because of SEC loopholes, lack of transparency and the richest of the rich being involved – hedge funds soon became the establishment. Once the uptick rule was demolished in 2007 it continued to go downhill from there. Hedge funds began driving the market and naked short selling became a rule of thumb… this lead to too much control by the hedge funds and, therefore, they play quite a significant role in this economic downturn.
Another hedge fund manager, Arthur Levitt, was also incredibly happy with the bailouts and the latest scheme brought to you by Geithner and the Obama administration. It only makes sense that George Soros would be incredibly happy, since the hedge funds and major players on Wall Street are the ones making the most money during this recession from the money being passed through as “bailouts.” If these bailouts or stimulus really worked, wouldn’t we have seen some better results by now? My conclusion is that they are taking the money for themselves.
George Soros has tried to bring down other economies before (Bank of England, Malaysia and Thailand) to pass his agenda, sending millions into poverty via his destructive path based on his own ideologies. His agenda is of course, socialism – but even more radical than the usual socialism we have seen in Europe.
Let me don my tin-foil hat for a minute and say “George Soros is Obama’s puppeteer.”
A hedge fund manager who predicted the global credit crunch has said the financial crisis has been ‘stimulating’ and the culmination of his life’s work.
Obama Truly is the Candidate of Wall Street
It’s official this is just a ponzi scheme to pay off wall street and especially hedge funds and investment firms:
Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, says crisis management “isn’t pretty.”
By providing $100 billion in cash and many times that amount in loans, the Treasury plan would enable investors to jointly purchase up to $1 trillion in bad loans from ailing banks. If the banks receive high prices on the loans – something Treasury indicates it prefers – the banks would be the primary beneficiaries, analysts say.
But if investors purchase the loans at low prices and the assets later appreciate significantly, the investors would make out like bandits.
“Will people be able to make a killing? Yes,” particularly because Treasury is willing to augment the returns for investors by providing loans worth six times their cash investments, said Arthur Levitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The biggest winners may be the five major investment firms that the Treasury plans to hire to manage the gigantic program, Wall Street executives say. These are almost certain to include Pimco, the big bond fund, and Blackstone, the private equity group, both of which suggested the investment program to Treasury and helped design it.
