"So it's a very elegant form of theft right now," Lewis says.

[WhiskeyGirl]

Wall Street banks, many on the verge of collapse just over a year ago, paid employees about $20 billion in bonuses for 2009 profits. Lewis tells Kroft that bonuses paid out by big banks that were propped up by the Federal Reserve in the economic crisis were essentially a scam on taxpayers. When you are a big bank on Wall Street, says Lewis, "You have access to a zero percent loan in virtually unlimited quantities from the Federal Reserve. You can take that money and reinvest it in treasury bonds or government agency securities and you will get the spread and you could do it over and over," says Lewis. "You're essentially borrowing from the government and lending the government and taking a cut."

Is this why taxpayers will never be able to afford the interest on all those loans?

"So it's a very elegant form of theft right now," Lewis says.

more here - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/12/60minutes/main6292458.shtml

Aren't these Obama's friends?  All those Wall Street bankers?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Lewis says despite the fact that their dealings managed to destroy $1.7 trillion - and counting - of wealth, these people still left their companies with big payouts. "I didn't run across a single character who didn't get rich." Even richer: "And they're being paid all over again to sort through the mess…that is an age-old trick on Wall Street…people who create the disasters make a lot of money cleaning up the disaster because they're the ones who know about the disaster," Lewis tells Kroft.

Wow, this sounds familiar...

Tim might know something - how to unwind all the wheeling and dealing, he was there when it started.

AIG need to pay big money to keep the folks who set this up, they might know something about the unwinding...

What's Barofsky been doing these days?  Does he have another report in the works?