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Spitzer: "Federal Reserve is 'a giant Ponzi
scheme'"
The man knew his shit,
too. ------------------------------------------------------ The
Federal Reserve — the quasi-autonomous body that controls the US’s money
supply — is a “Ponzi scheme” that created “bubble after bubble” in the
US economy and needs to be held accountable for its actions, says Eliot
Spitzer, the former governor and attorney-general of New York.
In
a wide-ranging discussion of the bank bailouts on MSNBC’s Morning
Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan described the process by which the Federal
Reserve exchanged $13.9 trillion of bad bank debt for cash that it gave
to the struggling banks.
Spitzer — who built a reputation as “the
Sheriff of Wall Street” for his zealous prosecutions of corporate crime
as New York’s attorney-general and then resigned as the state’s governor
over revelations he had paid for prostitutes — seemed to agree with
Ratigan that the bank bailout amounts to “America’s greatest theft and
cover-up ever.”
Advocating in favor of a House bill to audit the
Federal Reserve, Spitzer said: “The Federal Reserve has benefited for
decades from the notion that it is quasi-autonomous, it’s supposed to be
independent. Let me tell you a dirty secret: The Fed has done an
absolutely disastrous job since [former Fed Chairman] Paul Volcker
left.
“The reality is the Fed has blown it. Time and time again,
they blew it. Bubble after bubble, they failed to understand what they
were doing to the economy.
“The most poignant example for me is
the AIG bailout, where they gave tens of billions of dollars that went
right through — conduit payments — to the investment banks that are now
solvent. We [taxpayers] didn’t get stock in those banks, they didn’t ask
what was going on — this begs and cries out for hard, tough
examination.
“You look at the governing structure of the New York
[Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money.. This
is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous, it is time for
Congress to say enough of this. And to give them more power now is
crazy.
“The Fed needs to be examined carefully.”
Spitzer
resigned as governor of New York in March, 2008, after news reports
stated he had paid for a $1,000-an-hour New York City call
girl.
At the time, Spitzer had been raising the alarm about
sub-prime mortgages. In the wake of the economic meltdown triggered last
fall by sub-prime loans, some observers have suggested that Spitzer may
have been targeted by law enforcement because of his high-profile
opposition to Wall Street financial policies.
Investigative
reporter Greg Palast wrote that federal agents’ revealing of Spitzer’s
identity as a call-girl customer was no coincidence.
Palast wrote
that the principle of “prosecutorial discretion” is often used to keep
the names of high-profile persons out of the media when they are
tangentially linked to a criminal investigation. In the case of Spitzer,
the Justice Department chose not to invoke prosecutorial
discretion.
"Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example,
Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC
prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not
exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered
him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done
in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice
Department."
Spitzer recently told Bloomberg News that
President Obama’s regulatory reforms of the financial sector are
“irrelevant” because regulatory agencies have not been enforcing
corporate laws to begin with.
“Regulatory agencies already had
the power to do everything they needed to do,” he said. “They just
affirmatively chose not to do it.”
__________________ "Maybe it's not the politicians who suck.
Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the
public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public
Sucks. F*ck Hope.'" - George Carlin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anderton
For the record, an inability to
read or do research does not violate the
TOS.
Seems pretty obvious to me why he got
caught in that honey trap last year. Blow his credibility before he
blew the whistle, and caused at least SOME Joe Shmoes to get out of the
market early.
Seems pretty obvious to me why he
got caught in that honey trap last year. Blow his credibility
before he blew the whistle, and caused at least SOME Joe Shmoes to
get out of the market early.
It was
easy to destroy Elliot Spritzer on a mindless sex charge before he could
blow the whistle about how rigged the market was and what should be done
to prevent it from happening in the future.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkippyX
Gingrich....
Let's
see....
Isn't that the same douchebag that coughed up the
Contract On America and then prosecuted the (cum)Shot Heard 'Round
The World in the 90's?
Quote:
Originally Posted by skippydmongoose
dearlordandjesuschristonastick.....PICS
of you grabbing a
boob!!!!!!
Quote:
Warning
Amish Virus
You have just received the Amish virus. Since
we don't have electricity nor computers, you are on the honor
system. Please delete all of your files. Thank thee.
Social Security has done
what it's supposed to do for 60 years. You are free, however, to hand
over as much of your own money as you like to Bernie Madoff.
__________________ Last edited by Fred
Fartboski : Today at...
I don't think he meant an actual Ponzi
scheme, which is different from what the FED does. I think he was going
to make an analogy to the Madoff scandal that got so much attention
recently, and then say that the FED's thing is many times worse.
__________________ .
"An all around increase in
wealth threatened the destruction of a hierarchical society. If leisure
and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings
would become literate and would learn to think for themselves. They
would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no
function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical
society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance." - George
Orwell
Too bad sex ends up taking out some of the
good guys. How many repugs got caught with their pants down and are
still in politics?
__________________ Old saying - "everyone pays tuition"
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited..
Imagination encircles the world." ~ Albert Einstein ~
Well kind of.. Except
they took the retirement money and put it into overbuilding the
military, which made certain investors very rich. Social Security was a
fine and dandy program if nobody had robbed it. The rich man stole the
money and refused to pay in at the same time. But that's capitalism I
guess.
__________________ .
"An all around increase in
wealth threatened the destruction of a hierarchical society. If leisure
and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings
would become literate and would learn to think for themselves. They
would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no
function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical
society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance." - George
Orwell
"An all around increase in
wealth threatened the destruction of a hierarchical society. If leisure
and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings
would become literate and would learn to think for themselves. They
would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no
function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical
society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance." - George
Orwell
Spitzer wanted Geithner (NY FED
Chair) on a platter.
We all knew what Geithner was being
primed for. Spitzer had to be disposed
of.
Nah, Elliot Spitzer being
removed on a BS sex charge couldn't be a political because our
government would never do such a thing.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkippyX
Gingrich....
Let's
see....
Isn't that the same douchebag that coughed up the
Contract On America and then prosecuted the (cum)Shot Heard 'Round
The World in the 90's?
Quote:
Originally Posted by skippydmongoose
dearlordandjesuschristonastick.....PICS
of you grabbing a
boob!!!!!!
Quote:
Warning
Amish Virus
You have just received the Amish virus. Since
we don't have electricity nor computers, you are on the honor
system. Please delete all of your files. Thank thee.
Well kind of. Except they took the
retirement money and put it into overbuilding the military, which
made certain investors very
rich.
Kind of a narrow view. SS has
been a cash-cow for ANY over-indulgence on the part of Congress for as
long as it has existed. It has not been confined simply to 'unnecessary'
costs such as defense (which is actually mandated by the Constitution
even if there are excesses, perceivable or otherwise).
__________________ gp
I am NOT a ferret!
Stop PMing me!
"There comes a time in the affairs of man when he
must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. " --William Claude Dukenfield
