"6 Confirmation Questions For Ben Bernanke"

[WhiskeyGirl]

6 Confirmation Questions For Ben Bernanke

When will taxpayers get their money back from AIG? So far the government has spent $85 billion on this bottomless bailout, in exchange getting a 79.9 percent ownership stake in the wrecked insurance company. The Fed has bought an addition $47 billion worth of troubled AIG securities, which it hopes to sell for a profit at some point in the future...Bernanke should explain why, and then tell us what we got for our $85 billion, or however much we end up burning on AIG.  That money needs to be accounted for and now’s the time to start doing it. (Other bailouts that will probably go unredeemed include Chrysler, General Motors and GMAC, but those are mostly Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s responsibility, not Bernanke’s.)

Why did Goldman Sachs get AIG bailout money? Six months after the beginning of the AIG bailout, we learned that $12.9 billion worth of AIG bailout money actually went to Goldman Sachs, which had multiple deals with AIG that the government basically redeemed at 100 cents on the dollar. Three European banks got more than $30 billion in AIG bailout money, with other AIG trading partners getting lesser amounts. There may have been a sound reason for passing through so much money to AIG counterparties. So what was it? And why didn’t those trading partners even take a haircut on their deals with AIG, when the government itself will probably lose a bundle?...

Why is Citigroup still in business? By most accounts, this rogue bank made so many bad bets with its money—and other people’s—that it would have gone out of business five times over without massive government aid...

Is the American public smart enough to understand what’s been going on? Obviously Bernanke would say yes, but the government has in fact acted like hundreds of taxpayer-funded bailouts are none of our business—even though we’re paying for them. Bailout details have been scarce....

Generations of Americans will be paying.  Also paying for stimulus money to Korea and Brazil.  No jobs for Americans.

more good questions here - http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/6-confirmation-questions-for-ben-bernanke.html

[WhiskeyGirl]

Here's another one -

"SEC Signs Off On Fed Request To Expand Pool Of TALF Brokers"

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- In an effort to boost participation in the Federal Reserve's $200-billion lending program, securities regulators have agreed to expand the pool of brokers who will be allowed to extend credit to purchasers of asset-backed securities.

The decision was disclosed in a letter sent last week from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which earlier this month sought to expand the list of potential brokers for the Fed's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.

Are taxpayers on the hook for all this credit?  Who decides what standards borrowers have to meet?

Originally, the Fed sought to allow only a smaller list of primary dealers, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), act as TALF agents to help carry out the program. To do so, the Fed had to first ask the SEC back in February to grant certain exemptions to primary dealers so they could participate. At the time, the Fed said it needed the dealers to help execute its lending program because it lacked the "administrative and operational resources" to administer TALF itself.

I remember words that suggested the toxic assets were the worst possible paper - fraud, scams, waste, no value. 

What could possibly be left after all this time?  I have to wonder if the 'best' toxic assets were already cherry picked away. 

What's left?  Why would anyone want to buy them? 

Is there a list somewhere?  Like a HUD list of foreclosures?

The Fed told the SEC it is seeking to extend the exemptions for primary dealers and other additional brokers to "increase participation in the TALF, promote access to the TALF by small businesses and minority and women-owned firms and diversify the participants obtaining credit through TALF."

The SEC agreed to the request, saying it is "in the public interest."

Why weren't all these folks included in the beginning?

Where is the list of brokers published?  Their application papers?

Asked in February, this is the end of August, almost September.  What took so long?

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200908271024DOWJONESDJONLINE000521_FORTUNE5.htm

[WhiskeyGirl]

Here are some more questions -

Question 1: Is it true that the $180 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. was really a bailout of Goldman?

Question 2: Is it true you are, as Rolling Stone magazine said, a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity"?

Question 3: Let's say a former Goldman executive leaves to take control of the New York Stock Exchange and captures all the Big Board's trading information for Goldman's use. Then I, uh, I mean, he goes and accelerates the decline of one of Goldman's biggest rivals, selling the diminished rival to a stodgy commercial bank. That executive would get some kind of reward down the road, right? I mean, you wouldn't expect him to be out of a job for more than a year?

Read the enlightening answers and more questions here -

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticlepaged/articleid/3440859/pageid/2

I didn't know stock market bloggers had such a sense of humor...