Former FDIC Chair Bair: Bank Bailout Was ‘Overkill’

Moneynews:

The billions of taxpayer dollars spent to bailout big banks was largely unnecessary, according to Sheila Bair, former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman.

In an excerpt from her new book “Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street From Wall Street and Wall Street From Itself,” which was published by Fortune, Bair writes “with the exception of Citi, the commercial banks' capital levels seemed to be adequate.”

“Without government aid some of them might have had to forgo bonuses and take losses for several quarters, but still, it seemed to me that they were strong enough to bumble through,” she writes.

That the U.S. government showered Wall Street with cash during the financial crisis as people were losing their homes and jobs continues to be a hot button issue. Many Americans blame the banks for the crisis and argue that Washington could have and should have done more for the people and less for those who created the problem.

Bair seems to agree and this is not a new position for her.

Last October, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bair spoke at the National Asian American Coalition conference about her disappointment that so little appears to have been done for the millions of homeowners still in distress.

“I wish I could say things have gotten better, but I don't see that they have. The loan programs are not doing what they need to. Part of the problem is a not very well-functioning mortgage services industry. The resources are not there. The training is not there. The commitment is not there,” the Chronicle quoted her as saying.

Consistent with that sentiment, Bair writes in the book, “We used up resources and political capital that could have been spent on other programs to help more Main Street Americans.”

She admits that there was a lot less information available when the bailout decision was made and that that uncertainty played a factor in how the situation was handled.

Still, she writes, “In retrospect the mammoth assistance to those big institutions seemed like overkill. I never saw a good analysis to back it up.”

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Technorati Tags: FDIC,financial crisis,bank bailout,watch the other hand,finances,economics,Romney-Ryan,Mitt Romney in 2012. QE3,depression,student loans

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts

This gives a new meaning to " gov’t. corruption"!!!!

No wonder they didn't want to be Audited..

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts - unelected.org - Click: The Silver Bear Cafe

The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke(pictured to the right), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning.

What was revealed in the audit was startling:

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious - the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is "only" $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is "only" $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.

"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." - Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.

Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and super-corporations like Halloween candy. If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses will eventually plunder the world economy.

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows..

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places

View the 266-page GAO audit of the Federal Reserve(July 21st, 2011): http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation

Source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-696
FULL PDF on GAO server: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
Senator Sander’s Article: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

Source: unelected.org  - Click: The Silver Bear Cafe

(The Motto of the Silver Bear Cafe is: "Serving up a heaping helping of the Truth, with a generous side of Common Sense")

BANK OF AMERICA TO CHARGE $5 MONTH FEE FOR USING DEBIT CARD

NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Bank of America plans to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit card to make purchases. The fee will be rolled out starting early next year.

A number of banks have already either rolled out or are testing such fees. But Bank of America’s announcement carries added weight because it is the largest U.S. bank by deposits.

Anne Pace, a Bank of America Corp. spokeswoman, said Thursday that customers will only be charged the fee if they use their debit cards for purchases in any given month. Customers won’t be charged if they only use their cards at an ATM.

The fee will apply to basic accounts and will be in addition to any existing monthly service fees. For example, one of the bank’s basic accounts charges a $12 monthly fee unless customers meet certain conditions, such as maintaining a minimum average balance of $1,500.

A fee for using debit cards is still a novel concept for many consumers and was unheard of before this year. But there are signs it may soon become an industry norm.

SunTrust, a regional bank based in Atlanta, began charging a $5 debit card fee on its basic checking accounts this summer. Regions Financial, which is based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month.

Chase and Wells Fargo are also testing $3 monthly debit card fees in select markets. Neither bank has said when it will make a final decision on whether to roll out the fee more broadly.

 

“I might use all cash. Or go back to writing checks,” he said.

The debit card fee isn’t the only unwelcome change for checking account customers are seeing either. The banking industry has been raising fees and scaling back on rewards programs as they adjust to new regulations that will limit traditional revenue sources.

Starting Oct. 1, a regulation will cap the fees that banks can collect from merchants whenever customers swipe their debit cards. Those fees generated $19 billion in revenue for banks in 2009, according to the Nilson Report, which tracks the payments industry.

There is no similar cap on the fees that banks can collect from merchants when customers use their credit cards, however. That means banks may increasingly encourage customers to reach for their credit cards, reversing a trend toward debit card usage in the past several years.

An increasing reliance on credit cards would be particularly beneficial for Bank of America, which is a major credit card issuer, notes Bart Narter, a banking analyst with Celent, a consulting firm.

“It’s become a more profitable business, at least in relation to debit cards,” Narter said.

This summer, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that two-thirds of consumers use debit cards more frequently than credit cards. But when asked how they would react if they were charged a $3 monthly debit card fee, 61 percent said they’d find another way to pay.

If the fee were $5, 66 percent said they would also change their payment method.

Bank of America’s debit card fee will be rolled out in stages starting with select states in early 2012. The company would not say which states would be affected first.

Bank of America shares rose 9 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $6.25 in afternoon trading.

h/t to the Blaze

Dodd-Frank: The End Of Free Checking?

On Sat., Oct. 1, new regulations from the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul go into effect on debit cards. Specifically, they impose price controls on “interchange fees,” the fees that banks and credit unions charge to retailers on debit card transactions.

The average interchange fee is about 44 cents. The new rules limit the fees to 21 to 24 cents.

“The costs of processing debit card transactions doesn’t go away because you limit the price,” said John Berlau, director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. “That shifts the costs to consumers.”

These fees are used by banks to offer free checking and rewards programs. But now those programs may be be coming to an end. Just 45% of noninterest checking accounts are now free, down from 65% last year, according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com. The average monthly fee for those accounts has risen 75% in

the last year to $4.37.

Bank of America (BAC) just announced a $5 monthly fee for debit cards, starting early next year. BofA cited regulatory costs. Wells Fargo (WFC) and Chase (JPM) has experimented with $3 fees in some markets. Earlier in the year, SunTrust (STI) bank ended its debit card reward program.

Berlau notes other consequences:

Much of these costs will be transferred to consumers in terms of loss of free checking and debit card rewards, new charges for using an ATM, and other fee hikes and service cuts. In its rule, the (Federal Reserve) almost invited banks and credit unions to do this, “helpfully” pointing out that “the interchange fee standard would not limit the ability of an issuer to earn revenue from other sources, such as charging fees to cardholders.”

And there may be other nasty surprises, such as job losses. A Wall Street Journal editorial blamed at least part of the 40,000 Bank of America job losses on the loss of revenue due to the Dodd-Frank price controls. And late last week, Texas-based International Bancshares announced that due to the revenue loss from the price controls, it was closing 55 branches in grocery stores and shedding 500 jobs.

Even retailers may not get the full benefit they are expecting. According to one article, debit card processors can charge an additional fee when merchandise is returned, and that fee may not be covered by the regulations. Processors also may charge flat fees on transactions rather than a percentage-based fee, meaning retailers may pay more on small sales. Expect more processors to do that as the regulations take hold.

By David Hogberg   -  Thu., Sept. 29, 2011 11:30 AM ET  -  Capital Hill  -  h/t to Jean Stoner

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And at the core of this guy’s fiscal policies…

Adopt-A-Stimulus-Project

Hot Topics:

• Bailout Guide
• Stimulus
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Adopt-A-Stimulus-Project

It is never too early to start watchdogging one of the largest spending bills in U.S. history – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It includes $27 billion to repair America’s roads and bridges.

Monitoring thousands of construction sites around the country is an impossible task for a single reporter. Or a handful of reporters. That’s why we need your help.

Search for stimulus projects in your state below, then pick one to monitor over the next few months. We’ll send you suggestions and tips on how to watchdog your project. Use this form to send us reports (we'll also send you a link to it by email when you sign up).

Email Amanda Michel at amanda@propublica.org for more information. If you don’t see a project in your area join ProPublica’s Reporting Network; we’ll notify you when projects get started in your county.

Your State: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

88 results were found for Wisconsin check out your state.   Click on the column heads to sort at:  http://www.propublica.org/special/adopt-a-stimulus-project

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power

An Environmentalist's Thesaurus

'Global warming' is so passé.  This would be hysterical… if it wasn’t so scary and devious!

Some experts think the environmentalist movement has an image problem. According to them, greens are losing the battle against primeval despoilers of Nature's awesome bounty because they continue to use antiquated, in-your-face terms like "global warming," "cap and trade," and yes even "the environment." So says a new report by ecoAmerica, a cutting-edge, Washington-based nonprofit that specializes in environmental marketing and messaging, as reported in the New York Times (henceforth known as the Green Lady).

According to ecoAmerica, which has conducted rigorous, focus-group research in this area, environmentalists are taking it on the chin because politically charged terms like "global warming" conjure up images of hirsute, confrontational '60s types. "When you say 'global warming,'" Robert M. Perkowitz, ecoAmerica's president and founder, told the Times, "a certain group of Americans think that's a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues."  How about… the fact that it is just a wrong assumption?

Sadly, Mr. Perkowitz never explained how this "certain group" manages to draw a connection between global warming and gay marriage. And it must be said, I'd love to see his raw data on the subject.

In any event, to right the listing ship of sustainable biodiversity, ecoAmerica recommends that environmentalists mothball the textured scientific lingo and get right down to the nitty-gritty. That means ditching excessively technical terms like "carbon dioxide" and substituting catchy phrases like "moving away from the dirty fuels of the past."

EcoAmerica also recommends jettisoning the cumbersome term "the environment" and replacing it with the infinitely more felicitous "the air we breathe, the water our children drink." The organization probably got paid tons of money for this high-level research, so its advice should not go unheeded…?

Clearly, ecoAmerica is on to something with this bold initiative. But perhaps the subtle neologisms it's proposed don't go far enough. No one pays any attention to bloodless expressions like "depletion of the ozone layer" anymore. Moreover, "depletion" is a stupid word, since what it's supposed to decry is "catastrophic destruction" of the ozone layer, not its mere shrinkage.

What is needed here is more graphic language that the man on the street can understand. Thus, instead of saying something like "If mankind continues to deplete the ozone layer, we will cause irreparable damage to the environment," activists should say: "If we keep using the dirty fuels of the past to mess up that awesome thing in the sky that prevents our butts from like totally frying at the beach, then we might as well just spew filth into the air we breathe and the water our children drink and all curl up and die right now. Am I right, or what?"

Anyone can see how more colorful, less partisan, less politically rancorous language would enable environmentalists to seize the higher ground. Now it no longer sounds like some prissy elitist's butt that's going to fry. It could be somebody in a trailer park. Maybe even Dick Cheney.

There are many other environmentalist catchphrases that could use fine-tuning. "No carbon footprint" is a term so trendy, so precious, that it cannot help but reinforce the image of environmentalists as condescending do-gooders. Surely something less deviously euphemistic would work better.

Instead of hanging a sign in the window reading, "As of midnight Tuesday, this dining establishment will no longer leave a carbon footprint," restaurant owners could hang a placard reading: "Starting Tuesday, we will no longer allow disgusting fumes to belch all over the food your kids are eating and stinking up the air you breathe. We already warned the cook."

Similarly, instead of talking about "the melting of the polar ice cap," a phrase too apocalyptically antediluvian to scare anyone anymore, environmentalists should start referring to "dead polar bears in your driveway." "Degradation of habitat" could be replaced by a more evocative phrase like "torching Bambi's crib."

The one term environmentalists should probably deep-six, though, is "biological diversity." The ding-dongs who confuse "global warming" with gay marriage might think that biological diversity refers to features of the environment that only ethnic minorities care about. At this rate, we'll never get the planet back in working order.

By:  Mr. Queenan, a satirist and writer, is the author of numerous books. His memoir, "Closing Time," has just been published by Viking.

Source: online.wsj.com

As funny as this is… the process of rebranding the Green Movement by “the powers that be” and the companies like G.E. that will benefit from Cap-and-Trade and new Green Energy Project contracts” has begun…

The bottom-line here is that Global Warming is a farce.  The Earth has actually been (overall) cooling the past 10-years, but no matter how many scientists present their studies to Congress and the White House and no matter how much the American Public is against the new “Green” program because it will cost the American taypayer more money… a lot more money as well as 'lose jobs' not increase them at a time that America just can’t afford it... the powers that be trudge on!  Cap-and-Trade is a huge tax.  And 'two' jobs are actually lost in the United States for every 'one' Green job created.  As for Al Gore, is he evil?  No… just being used and a bit clueless!!  After all, he wants to be remembered for something and thinks he invented the Internet… and that should say it all.

Should we all care about the environment… absolutely!  Are there many issues that we should all get behind… stopping deforestation, cleaner disposal and recycling of our waste, loss of plant and animal species at an unimaginable rate, cleaner water, cleaner air… and the list goes on?  Should we encourage the world to stop procreating irresponsibly?… absolutely!  And should the world slowly and responsibly shift toward cleaner and renewable energy sources, with a little help from the government?... absolutely!  We should have started doing all this 40-years-ago when the flower children and hippies were protesting about it!  Just like we should have planned ahead and stopped borrowing from social security and Medicare and planned for the Baby-Boomer Retirement at least 20-year-ago.  I have books in my bookcase from 20 and even 40 years ago predicting and discussing all the above.  But if you are buying into the present Green movement (rebranding of Global Warming) and Cap-and-Trade… you are being had!

Before it is too late… educate yourself, and that does not mean watch the daily regular media news, especially NBC, whose parent company is General Electric (GE) and is in the bag for the Obama White House and that has and stands to make billions.  They already have received $139 Billion from the FDIC in bailout money.  HMMM… are they a bank?

  Green Hell – A Must Read!

What Can I Do?

• Educate Yourself (Starting Now) – You are living during a time that will change the America we know forever.  You owe it to yourself and future generations to pay attention
• Watch, listen and read a full spectrum of news and informational TV programs, Internet websites, newspapers, magazines and books
• Contact Your Representatives (ASAP) and let them know you are against Cap-and-Trade and that you think Global Warming is a farce
• Get Involved – Be Creative; Organize a Green Tea Party/Anti-Cap and Trade Tea Party; Tell Just One More Person…
• Stop Believing That The Government Will Look Out For You... For Us..., So Functioning as 'The Silent Majority' Is Okay!
• Cast an ‘Educated Vote’ Not An Emotional Vote in 2010 and 2012
• 
  
  American Progressivism 
  
  An Inconvenient Book
  Animal Spirits

GE - General Electric, NBC, MSNBC Ceo's In The Bag For Obama

Updated Exclusive! Entire GE CEO Confrontation!

"Factor" producer (and GE shareholder) Jesse Watters attended the annual GE shareholder meeting on April 21 in Orlando, Florida. During the Q&A period, Watters asked Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt about the recent ugly comments by Janeane Garofalo on MSNBC. Here is how Immelt - and the room full of stockholders - responded to the confrontation.

GE is the parent company of MSNBC and NBC News.  NBC is the most left leaning Obama pro network on the air that portrays itself as just "reporting the news".  They helped elect Obama and report pro Obama, pro Democratic Liberal Congress pro the Green movement to benefit themselves.  GE, a failing company, is hoping for rewards from the White House to promote Green Energy and help keep GE afloat; bailout money for Wind Turbine Energy.