A 25 Billion Dollar Secret: The NY Fed, Goldman & The AIG Cover-Up
Why did the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose Chairman was Stephen Friedman (a Goldman Sachs board member who resigned from the New York Fed earlier this year when it was revealed that he had made $5 million by purchasing shares in GS with the knowledge that AIG would be paying counterparties at par and that Goldman would be getting a $13 billion windfall -- when no one else had this information) and whose President was none other than current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, why did this New York Fed choose to pay AIG's counterparties 100 cents on the dollar when AIG itself had been negotiating for steep haircuts with claimants, AND why did they then pressure AIG executives to keep quiet about the decision even discouraging AIG from disclosing the 'par-payments' to its shareholders in required SEC filings?
We'll leave the decision itself (which was fraudulent, borderline criminal, and the reasoning given - a complete joke), for another post and focus on the cover-up. Certainly it riled up Congressman Darrell Issa who fired off an angry letter last Friday to AIG management and the New York Fed, demanding the following from both:
- Emails, phone logs and meeting notes of the following people: Timothy Geithner, Stephen Friedman, Tom Baxter, and Sarah Dahlgren;
- Term sheets, including drafts, relating to AIG’s payments to its CDS counterparties;
- Emails, phone logs and meeting notes referring or relating to public disclosure of AIG’s payments to its CDS counterparties including disclosure to the SEC.
Issa continues in his letter:
It is also disturbing that, at the time this secret deal was made, FRBNY Chairman Stephen Friedman, a member of the board of Goldman Sachs, purchased more than 50,000 shares of Goldman Sachs before knowledge of the FRBNY’s bailout of Goldman Sachs and other AIG counterparties became public knowledge. According to news reports, this transaction has earned Mr. Friedman over $5 million in profit.
Finally, according to one AIG executive quoted in news reports, the FRBNY may have attempted to manage public disclosure of its decision to pay AIG’s counterparties at par by pressuring the company not to file pertinent documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”):
They’d tell us that they don’t think that this or that should be disclosed. They’d say, “Don’t you think your counterparties will be concerned?” It was much more about protecting the Fed.
These allegations raise serious questions about the transparency, accountability and wisdom of the FRBNY’s actions. The American people have a right to know the full details behind the FRBNY’s decision to stop negotiations with AIG’s counterparties and pay them billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
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DB here. It's not difficult to understand what happened, and it most certainly was not a coincidental result of independent decisions made during the heat of the crisis. We've actually known it was the Fed for awhile. Ever since House testimony from AIG CEO Ed Liddy confirming that "The Fed made us do it." The problem at the time was that we didn't know which Fed.
Now we know: Geithner and Friedman interceded on behalf of Goldman and Wall Street (Merrill received $6.2 billion, Societe General - a whopping $16.5 billion) to deliver a stealth bailout, one that wouldn't need Congressional approval, and even better wouldn't require the counterparties to pay any of it back NOR would it require that they issue shares, warrants or any other instrument to AIG (taxpayers) in return for more than $32 billion in free money.
As example, Lehman counterparties got 11 cents. AIG creditors in bankruptcy court might have gotten 25 cents, if they were lucky given the state of the asset markets at the time. AIG itself was negotiating for 50 cents, but your friend and steward of your currency, Treasury Secretary Turbo-Tax, and his boss Stephen Friedman thought 100 would be the best number for everyone involved, leading to a windfall for AIG counterparties of at least $16 billion. In real terms, anything over 25 cents was a gift and thus the real giveaway was somewhere in the range of $25 billion, notwithstanding the author's calculations. And if that weren't enough, then Geithner and Friedman succeeded in covering up their secret for 9 months, until Bloomberg through dogged effort and FOIA determination finally got the scoop. Read the following passage from Bloomberg carefully:
Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.
Edward Grebeck, CEO of Stamford, Connecticut-based debt consulting firm Tempus Advisors, says the most serious breach by the government was to keep the process of approving the bank payments secret. “It’s inexcusable,” says Grebeck, who teaches a course on CDSs at New York University. “Everybody should be privy to the negotiations that went on. We can’t have bailouts like this happening behind closed doors.”
The deliberations of the New York Fed are not made public. In this case, even the identities of the AIG counterparties weren’t disclosed until March 2009, when U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, head of the Senate Finance Committee, demanded they be made public. Bloomberg News has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the term sheets related to AIG’s counterparty payments, along with e-mails and the logs of phone calls and meetings among Geithner, Friedman and other New York Fed and AIG officials. The request is pending.
The Federal Reserve has been reluctant to publish information on its efforts to stabilize the financial system since the crisis began. The Fed has loaned more than $2 trillion, yet it refuses to name the recipients of the loans, or cite the amount they borrowed, saying that doing so may set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders.
William Poole, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, defends the New York Fed’s action. “I think the Federal Reserve was trying to stop the spread of fear in the market,” Poole says. “The market was having enough trouble dealing with Lehman. If you add, on top of that, AIG paying off some fraction of its liabilities, a system which is already substantially frozen would freeze rock-solid.”
Still, officials at AIG object to the secrecy that surrounded the transactions. One top AIG executive who asked not to be identified says he was pressured by New York Fed officials not to file documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that would divulge details. “They’d tell us that they don’t think that this or that should be disclosed,” the executive says. “They’d say, ‘Don’t you think your counterparties will be concerned?’ It was much more about protecting the Fed.”
‘An Outrage’
Friedman’s role remains controversial. In December 2008, weeks after the payments to the banks were authorized in November, Friedman bought 37,300 shares of Goldman stock at $80.78 a share, according to SEC filings. On Jan. 22, he bought 15,300 more at $66.61. Both purchases took place before the payments to Goldman Sachs were publicly disclosed under pressure from Senator Dodd in March. On Oct. 26, Goldman Sachs stock closed at $179.37 a share, meaning Friedman had paper profits of $5.4 million.
Jerry Jordan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, says Friedman should have resigned from the New York Fed as soon as it became clear that Goldman stood to benefit from its actions. “It’s an outrage,” Jordan says. “He needed to either resign from the Fed board or from Goldman and proceed to sell his stock.”
Friedman remains a member of Goldman’s board and held a total of 98,600 shares of the firm’s stock as of Jan. 22.
Vickrey says that one reason the New York Fed should have insisted on discounted payments for AIG’s CDSs is that the banks likely had hedges against their insured CDOs or had already written down their value. On March 20, Goldman Sachs CFO David Viniar said in a conference call with investors that Goldman was protected. “We limited our overall credit exposure to AIG through a combination of collateral and market hedges,” Viniar said. “There would have been no credit losses if AIG had failed.”
In any event, former St. Louis Fed President Poole says the entire process should have been public and transparent. “There should be a high bar against not disclosing,” Poole says. “The taxpayer has every right to understand in detail what happened.”
Read the rest of the article HERE
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So even Fed voting member and counterparty-negotiation apologist, William Poole decries the secrecy. And he was likely not aware of the par-payment cover-up since Friedman and Geithner kept it all within the New York Fed family.
In any other time, a sitting Treasury Secretary who interceded on behalf of Wall Street to screw taxpayers out of tens of billions, would not be sitting long. But Democrats control both the House and Senate, so there are no investiagtions (Issa's letter aside). Traditional media is content not to rock the boat for President Banks Obama lest they be shunned by their peers, and ultimately, 99% of TV and print journalists don't understand the issues well enough to complain with any conviciton, especially against the merry backdrop of the Dow rising and their deflated 401ks beginning to show life.
It's the exact same set of circumstances that allowed Paulson to cram TARP down our throats last fall; Congressional members and the journalists who cover them are too ill-informed about finance to have confidence in taking a critical position against the rampant fear-mongering that ultimately got the bill passed (see this Kanjorski clip).
They fall prey to fear and weakly submit to duplicitous hyperbole (Paulson threatening martial law and blood in the streets), when they should instead be consulting with the objective, critical voices who foresaw the crisis and were prepared with alternative solutions when it finally came (Stiglitz said instead of TARP, create new banks).
A pox on Congress, President Banks Obama, Bush, Paulson, Friedman, Bernanke and Geithner (plus Greenspan and Rubin). You may have gotten away with it for now, but I would wager there are a few million of us, roughly, who do understand everything that went down last Fall, and we're not amused. We're not just going to let this one pass, and we will not stop filling the vast interweb with the truth (and our distaste and vitriol for your wretched souls) day after day, week after week, all over message boards and finance blogs, until justice is served.
We can wait you out. I've seen traders hold a grudge against a stock for decades. How long do you think we can wait given the generational rape you have inflicted upon families? For the guilty, your day will come.
And until then, good luck with your reputations.
Apr 1, 2013 at 2:09 PM
Reader Comments (30)
http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=340:issa-questions-frbny-and-aig-on-back-door-bailout&catid=27:latest-news
http://dailybail.com/home/matt-taibbi-talks-vampire-squid-video.html
Independent voters have become like a herd of cattle looking for political leadership.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574515453039975302.html
UK Times Online...Sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils, prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.
All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school.
Mr Balls said that lowering the age to 15 was “the most balanced, most practical and legally enforceable way” to satisfy the rights of parent and children.
Mr Balls said: “Sex and relationship education is a very important element and we see it as crucial to our drive to reduce teenage pregnancy.”
What does this have to do with the bailouts? Okay, here is a banking joke...
A little old lady went into the Bank of America one day, carrying a bag of money. She insisted that she must speak with the president of the bank to open a savings account because, "It's a lot of money!" After much hemming and hawing, the bank staff finally ushered her into the president's office.
The bank president then asked her how much she would like to deposit. She replied, "$165,000!" and dumped the cash out of her bag onto his desk. The president was of course curious as to how she came by all this cash, so he asked her, "Madam, I'm surprised you're carrying so much cash around. Where did you get this money?" The old lady replied, "I make bets." The president then asked, "Bets? What kind of bets?" The old woman said, "Well, for example, I'll bet you $25,000 that your balls are square." The president laughs, "That's a stupid bet. You can never win that kind of bet!" The old lady challenged, "So, would you like to take my bet?" The president agrees, "Sure, I'll bet $25,000 that my balls aren't square!" The little old lady then said, "Okay, but since there is a lot of money involved, may I bring my lawyer with me tomorrow at 10am as a witness?"
"Sure!" replied the confident president.
That night, the president got very nervous about the bet and spent a long time in front of a mirror checking his balls, turning from side to side, again and again. He thoroughly checked them out until he was sure that there was absolutely no way his balls were square and that he would win the bet. The next morning, at precisely 10am, the little old lady appeared with her lawyer at the president's office.
She introduced the lawyer to the president and repeated the bet "$25,000 says the president's balls are square!" The president agreed with the bet again and the old lady asked him to drop his pants so they could all see. The president complied. The little old lady peered closely at his balls and then asked if she could feel them. "Well, Okay," said the president, "$25,000 is a lot of money, so I guess you should be absolutely sure."
Just then, he noticed that the lawyer was quietly banging his head against the wall. The president asked the old lady, "What the hell's the matter with your lawyer?" She replied, "Nothing, except I bet him $100,000 that at 10am today I'd have The Bank of America's president's balls in my hand."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/27/AR2009102703963.html?sub=AR
"N.Y. Fed pushed AIG on contracts
After federal bailout, insurance giant lost its leverage with banks"
They lost their power to negotiate because the Fed stepped in to save them from bankruptcy. So at that point, they were unable to enforce haircuts because the company was going to get unlimited funding from Uncle...ah.. Tim.
Ok, fine, I can accept that argument, but at the moment the US govt stepped in to gaurantee AIG's mess, didn't that make AIG technically a triple A company again? The "Washington Post" spin blows up because the US govt didn't need to cut the contracts anymore. They were stabilizing the market and AIG; it should have been the low point to the contracts that were bound to reverse in price!
Issa, keep going. Time to end the bulls#$% and put the smug bankers to rest.
thx Henry blodget for posting this story so prominently on Clusterstock this morning...
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-billion-dollar-secret-the-ny-fed-goldman-and-the-aig-cover-up-2009-11
There are a bunch of great comments over there...
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/11/06/81931/further-reading-394/
Yes I've seen the WashPo story with the Fed's excuse...and i will be writing about it...i decided to separate the story into 2 parts...and focused on the cover-up for this one...
You made some good points...thanks for reading...
Nobody Is Hiring Because Americans Are Too Productive
http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-so-productive-companies-dont-need-to-hire-any-more-2009-11
An 80% Sham Market, Zombie Armies and Cheating Investors
by Daniel Amerman
Overview
About 80% of net issuance of total US Treasury and Agency debt has become an artificial market, lacking real investors, and relying on the fiction of Federal Reserve purchases with imaginary money in order to prop up prices and hold down yields. At the same time, Treasury secretary Geithner claims to be so pleased with this non-existent market that he wants to increase the
http://safehaven.com/article-14935.htm
Keep up the fine work!
To whom it may concern:
Please quit emailing me for donations. I will not be contributing a dime to either party in the foreseeable future. I think the lobbyists will make sure you have plenty of cash to keep you pursuing their employers agendas. The Democrats and the Republicans have both rolled over for the special interests. It looks to me like the corporate special interests, the insurance companies and the big banks are running what is supposed a Democratic Government as a Corporatocracy. Most of my friends and family are voting Independent in 2010 and any Senator or Representative who has put the special interests ahead of the American people is gone. We hope that means most of the incumbents will be joining the unemployment lines they helped create. I voted Democratic in the last election, that won't be happening again until you people stand up for the majority of Americans and do what your supposed to be doing. Of Americans polled 75 % want (HR-1207) (S-604) passed as written. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barney Frank are doing everything they can to keep these bills from coming to a vote until they can get them watered down to be meaningless. Just another example of the 545 people in Washington DC we voted to represent us and keep our country strong, telling us to go to hell and allowing the banks and corporate special interests to turn the United States into a third world country with a broken economy. If I could make a list of such examples that have happened over the last 30 years, it would dwarf that 2000 page Joke of a Health Care bill that none of you are going to read before you vote on it. If the American people get their heads out of the sand, I think you people will have a real wake up call coming in 2010 and 2012.
Unfortunately, it is worse than just the politicians, as currently approximately one forth of our nation is currently being held in reserve as collateral to the foreign investors in our debt.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html
It is all by design, and brought to you live by ALL "free thinking" voting citizens who have shown their mental prowess by burying their heads in the sand, and voting the party ticket...
My suggestion to everyone when receiving requests for money from politicians, would be to send them assless panties.
United States Congressional Record - March 17, 1993 - Vol. #33, page H-1303 - Speaker- Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise."
http://redi2revolt.blogspot.com
I'm willing to look, I just don't see the Illuminati or whatnot under every bed. Whose "design" are we talking about, anyhow? Show me the goods and I might buy it, but I just don't see it.
You probably think it is a accident that H.R. 1207 is being gutted.
http://dailybail.com/home/ron-paul-is-asking-for-your-help-hr-1207-has-been-gutted.html
Lincoln recognized the threat of the banking cartels when he wrote:
* “The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power." Abraham Lincoln Senate document 23, Page 91. 1865
The Europeans recognized the danger to their financial cartels when the London times published in 1865 this piece regarding our government printing its own currency as Lincoln wished to do:
* "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." - Hazard Circular - London Times 1865.
The above referenced reading materials should keep you busy for a little bit, above all else, follow the money... Good luck, if you choose the journey...
Many may choose to go back to the good old days of believing in the pure virtue of the bankers and their lackeys, because it is easier, HOLY CRAP!!!!!!! I just saw the Lollipop King!!!
Take a look at these for a brief narrative;
http://usa-the-republic.com/revenue/true_history/Chap8.html
http://autarchic.tripod.com/files/banksters.html
"My suggestion to everyone when receiving requests for money from politicians, would be to send them assless panties. "
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now that is funny....
Meanwhile the Irish economy shrinks, the government sells off public assets cheap, unemployment rises steeply, social benefits are shrunk, and Ireland will be in depression if this Geithner extortion continues. Of course the Irish government bears blame inn this for going along. On the other hand the leading politicians will probably make very good money from the whole Geithner destruction.
Essay on The Era of The American-International Banker Ponziophile (Pleonexiophile)-June 2, 2011
The Wall Street Gang and The Big Banks Gang (American and International, IMF, World Bank et. al) have lied to us and stolen from us. It is as simple as that. The Regulator elements, such as The Fed (private) and the Federal regulators (public) and many elected officials have been The Facilitators in this Co-Dependency of Corruption……The Mainstream Media and The Neoconservative Media Lies to us about employment and other economic indicators, telling us how everything is improving……Not so.
Some years ago (not too many) individuals and then gradually (maybe not so gradually), as the “collective ethic” changed, Wall Street and The Big Bankers realized that there was MUCH MORE MONEY and money which could be made MUCH FASTER AND EASIER if they just by-passed employment and production of REAL GOODS AND SERVICES and just made money out of money (Because of powerful, unreasonable unions and government regulation, as well as some other factors, much of America‘s former economic might of goods and services has been exported offshore anyway)………Hence, the various “Instruments” were created: “Ponzi A” rated, “Ponzi B” rated and so on, going far down the line to “Ponzi Z,” rated bonds, thus creating 26 times the original wealth, let’s say (since there are 26 letters in the English Alphabet-36 letters in the Russian alphabet, take note).
Nothing will change SIGNIFICANTLY until these guilty people are investigated, prosecuted, convicted and put in jail. And they should not be put in Country Club Jails, like Bernard Madoff, but they should be put in REAL jails like the one where DSK recently resided, Riker’s Island. These people are “Ponziophiles” who have reeked havoc on The Entire World and have caused suffering and even death, to millions of individuals……………………
I am a capitalist. Capitalism is good but some men are not motivated by good, employing their capital and their ideas in helping others by creating employment and other positive contributions to society. These Ponziophiles have been consumed with Pleonexia, unbridled greed and covetousness, making/taking money out of other peoples’ money. This is not capitalism. This is “Ponziophilia,” and it is immoral, indecent and shameful.
There are some Good Men and Women who are trying to make this happen but until IT ACTUALLY DOES there will be little confidence in the “confidence men” of Wall Street, OR The Banks, OR The Fed, OR The Treasury OR “The Fantasy Island of Economic Indicators/Statistics.”
These people are “Ponziophiles” and should be sent to Riker‘s for Rehab! (You read “PONZIOPHILES” here first. I “coined“ the term today, as well as "Pleonexiaphile.") PUT GOLD AND HONESTY BACK INTO WALL STREET, THE BIG BANKS, OUR ELECTED OFFICALS, AND OUR CURRENCY.
………………………………..............Leo M. McCormick………………………………
…………………………….............www.SilvertonGold.org…............………………
“I tremble for my Country when I reflect that God is just.”------Thomas Jefferson.
This essay is not endorsed by Ron Paul but I endorse Ron Paul for President 2012-2020.……….”End the Fed”……….Back the Dollar with Gold………..(The Silverton Gold Mining Company L.L.C.---contributor)......
The Shocking 2008 AIG Report On "Empire Europe" And The Death Of Greece
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-15/shocking-2008-aig-report-laying-out-motives-behind-europes-perpetual-crisis-and-deat
Yes, Varoufakis was right, and will be right in the end: the cost of a Grexit would have been too great in the future. However he did not anticipate that Europe has a just as powerful counterweapon: locking up Greek deposits indefinitely right now.
Greece folded.
Which brings us to the final question: What Europe Wants?
Here is Connolly's answer:
To use global issues as excuses to extend its power:
environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governance
terrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance
global financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Anglo-Saxon economies) with one stone (Europe-wide regulator; attempts at
global financial governance)
EMU: create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government”
And there it is: in four simple bullet points laid out in a 7 year old presentation, a prediction which is about to be proven right. Because once Greece folds, next will be Italy, Spain, Portugal, and so on, until the European Economic Government, also known as the "European Empire", controlled by a handful of "northern" European players and the bankers financially backing them, shifts from mere vision to reality.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0YT2M2