Thread: BAIL OUTS, TIMING: WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN

BAIL OUTS, TIMING: WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN

By: Devvy
September 29, 2008
© 2008 - NewsWithViews.com

“We're turning risk investment funds into the hands of taxpayers,â€

THIS INFORMATION SHOULD BE SENT TO YOUR CONGRESMAN!

This is very interesting: (from Naked Capitalism website)

http://www.nakedcapitalis...

Various readers wrote us, and it was confirmed by a detailed report on the call at DealBreaker, that the Treasury Department held a conference call this evening for investors on the bailout bill. A memo was evidently sent to SIFMA members; others may have been contacted by other means. But the report I got from one person who was on the call was the the questions came from financial services industry members. In other words, this was most assuredly not intended to be a call open to the public at large. If anyone from the media or other member of the great unwashed was listening in, it was by accident.

This is simply scandalous. To have a group of interested parties get a privileged briefing by government officials on a matter of keen public interest flies in the face of what a democracy is supposed to be about. The proper method would either be a published FAQ on the Treasury website or a briefing with the media included. But why should I be surprised? Favoritism has been a staple of the Bush Administration.

There is a live blogging recap at DealBreaker. Someone who was on the call is going over his notes and other recaps on the Web and sending me his version, which I hope will add some color. Check back for that update.

Update: Here are the notes promised. Calculated Risk had put up the conference call number. so some of this is the listener's notes, some are hoisted from CR. They are admittedly skeletal at points, but track and enhance the live blogging report at DealBreaker. You can download a torrent for the call here, which I intend to do post haste and will amend the post accordingly. I've included the long form notes below, but some items jump out:

1. The tranching is a mere formality, and the Treasury boys as much as said so. They could take the $700 billion max as soon as the bill has passed,

2. However, they do not plan any action immediately, will wait a couple of weeks. They want to focus their efforts on stronger companies but also made noise about protecting the financial system. This, by the way, is the Japanese convoy system all over.

3. There seemed to be a lot of tap dancing about what price they will pay for assets and no straight answer about their policy on warrants. They did say that if the amount sold was greater than $100 million, they would take warrants. FYI, the current draft allows them to pay up to the price at which the assets were initially booked (yikes) . I wonder if this is obfuscation, if they have an idea of what the plan to do but will not admit it in any public forum.

4. As the person who listened to the call stressed, DealBreaker wasn't clear on the bifurcated process. If you come to the Treasury and you are in trouble, you get reamed. Bear/AIG style treatment, execs probably fired. But if you participate on a voluntary basis, the intent is to make it very user friendly. That is consistent with Paulson's position during the negotiations.

5. The exec comp provisions sound like a joke, They DO NOT affect existing contracts, they affect only contracts entered into during the two years of the authority of this program and then affect only golden parachutes. More detail on that point, but I don't need more detail to get the drift of the gist.


http://www.dailypaul.com/node/65010

I have been hearing of this economic melt down for a long time.......from a variety of sources. Most have been de-bunked calling them members of the Tin Hat club or conspiracy theorists. Same ones talking of the NAU and all the other things. I've written down specific dates they have given a heads up too and maybe they missed it by a day or 2......but otherwise they were correct. There's 2 in the month of October I'm keeping my eye on and it sure doesn't take a genious to see they are going to be accurate as well.......and I heard of them a long time ago. I've seen a crisis hit about every time something they needed to slip a change through so we were too busy to notice the slip. It's easy to say they have accomplished that since so many Americans are going "Since when is that ok?" "I thought that was illegal!" "They can't do that, it's against the Constitution!" "Why aren't they in jail? If I would have that they'd have me locked up!" Of course none of those dates are ever said on the regular news......so I'm not talking about a red alert terriorist alert to keep people in a panic. I had my head in the sand for a long time, but I did start paying attention and watching the process for atleast 10+ years and from what I've learned it's been going on long before then. There were many times we could have stopped the process, but I remember the rage after 911 when anyone questioned the Patriot Act. You weren't patriotic, you must be a terriorist, on down the line. The "event" to institute the final changes to make the finish possible. Just like they call people racist, zenophobic and any other of names when you say we want our laws enforced. Division complete. Rich vs poor, race, ethnic and language barries, on down the line and a future generation dumbed down so bad it's not funny.....and parents too busy to fill in the blanks. When I first met my husband he was always saying "Well....that's coz there's a set of laws for the we'ems and a set of laws for the you'ems." Guess the only thing that's kept me going is believing in the American people and that there isn't anywhere better to run to.