Unmask the Federal Reserve

Guest post (I copied and pasted an email from him) from Congressman Alan Grayson...

Last year, I asked the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who received $1 trillion in funds that the Fed handed out to domestic banks and financial institutions. He said, essentially, "I'm not going to tell you." More recently, I asked the Chairman of the Fed who received the half trillion dollars - that's $500,000,000,000 - that the Fed handed over to foreign central banks. He said he didn't know. Half a trillion dollars, and he doesn't know!

That kind of ignorance and arrogance must end. We need to audit the Fed. And now we're closer than ever.

The House passed our bill to conduct the first independent audit of the Fed in its 96-year history. Now it's time for the Senate to act.

A bipartisan group of Senators is pushing for an amendment to audit the Fed. This amendment is similar to the legislation that we passed in the House last year. It's called the Federal Reserve Accountability Amendment. It will ensure that the American people know to whom the Fed is lending our money.

A vote on the amendment is imminent. Time is of the essence. Visit UnmaskTheFed.com NOW to contact your Senators, and call on them to cosponsor and support the Federal Reserve Accountability Amendment.

The amendment is simple. If it passes, the Fed finally will be audited. Regarding all those billions that the Fed hands out like party favors, we will find out who, what, when, where and how. (We already know "why" - the answer to that question is "Wall Street Greed".) But if this amendment fails, the Fed can continue to make hand out our money to whomever it wants, without telling Congress or the American People.

We think we can pass the Senate Amendment, with your help. The amendment is already cosponsored by progressive heroes like Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy and Russ Feingold. And joining us in this strange-bedfellows coalition are John McCain, Jim DeMint, David Vitter and Sam Brownback. (We hesitate to use the terms "bedfellows" and "David Vitter" in the same sentence, but that would be changing the subject.)

With such bipartisan support, you'd think that passing this legislation would be a slam dunk. Wrong. Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists are twisting arms and pouring millions into the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the political divide, to keep their sweetheart Fed loans under wraps. It's time to counter their influence-peddling by making the Senate listen to the united voice of the American People. (That would be you.)

It's time to step up the pressure. Contact your Senators NOW at UnmasktheFed.com.

Courage,

Alan

Soup Kitchen for Wall Street Talent

Reports are coming in that the brain trust of Wall Street is exiting stage right for better turf. I’m of the opinion to let them all walk. Somebody sold the crap that ended up being just crap and somebody made it sound like gold. Ergo they sold it even though they fully well knew it was junk. There was a sales pitch and people bought it and now lost more than their retirement money.

Wall Street and the description of what is talent of banking is an oxymoron these days. The same people that crippled the world economy are not people you want to keep in your business. Make no doubt about it, the kids that made a ton of money on Wall Street are going to follow the flow of new money because that is what they do. It would be stupid if they did not! If not for their own survival but for the survival of the companies they once represented and sold all kinds of scams to America and world investors that are now at near collapse if not for our taxpayer infusion of cash.

There will not be one company on Wall Street that will suffer the loss of people that sold and built a company on nothing. Millions or Billions of $Dollar investment companies do not base their livelihood on the existence on depending on one or two high performers, not even ten or twenty, not even fifty or one hundred people. This is not reality and the New York Times should be ashamed of even printing this piece…

Crisis Altering Wall Street as Big Banks Lose Top Talent
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and LOUISE STORY
Published: April 11, 2009

The turning point for Stephan Jung came in February, around the time bonus checks were slashed. A veteran of UBS, one of many banks tarnished by the financial crisis, Mr. Jung realized that the old Wall Street would not be bouncing back any time soon. It was time to head for the new.

“After 10 years, I did not see a future for myself,” said Stephan Jung, who quit his job at UBS to work at Aladdin Capital.

“After 10 years, I did not see a future for myself,” said Mr. Jung, 42, who quit to parlay his sales expertise into a career at Aladdin Capital, a small but rising investment firm run by others who had also left some of the most venerable names in finance.

There is an air of exodus on Wall Street — and not just among those being fired. As Washington cracks down on compensation and tightens regulation of banks, a brain drain is occurring at some of the biggest ones. They are some of the same banks blamed for setting off the worst downturn since the Depression. - New York Times

I need to be clear in this post, I have no problem with someone making a living, I just have a problem with someone thinking that my tax dollars bailing out their company is the reason they needed to find a new job. Especially, when the bailout money comes with some responsibility on the behalf of the banking and financial industry. Exit stage right for those that can not deal with responsibility.

I’m scaring myself for sounding like a Republican! Damn! Then again, maybe I’m just a Dad that knows when his child has gone to far? That has no political definition and this topic just might fit into that avenue of thought. Then again, how is your 401K doing or your kids college fund investments?

Wall Street will be fine once the dead wood that thought they could sell ice to an Eskimo, no offense to Eskimos, are long gone. Stick to the business plan and take care of your investors over your own self interest and the speculators and skammers must go. Please tell me that I am wrong!

Unbelievable that the New York Times even posted a sympathetic piece to the scams and people crying foul on Wall Street. How many bonus checks did this guy cash before he felt wronged? I'm pretty sure he wasn't crying when the checks were beyond belief for simple folks like you and I to find believable.

How many bonus checks have you cashed? You don’t get bonus checks unless you grossly profited the company beyond belief. And these bonus checks are only a fractional margin of what the company actually made so that is something to really think about. Why is it thought that everyone on Wall Street deserves a bonus and yet the scammers on Wall Street perpertrated the disaster that is our financial industry today?

Point made!

Papamoka