Top priorities of corrupt Biden administration is not to prevent financial scandals but to try to make sure that the DNC/CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax -- will NOT / will NEVER be fully acknowledged.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say
By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations May 07, 2021
In his big speech last week, President Biden complained about “Russia's interference in our elections” but his intelligence community, led by his appointee Avril Haines, right, says there wasn't any.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say | RealClearInvestigations
The Biden administration is misquoting its own intelligence findings on Russia in what some former U.S. intelligence officials say is a subtle but significant effort to continue to delegitimize the Trump presidency.
So 'Right-On!' Matt. You have already compiled and shared so much that is of immediate and long term value to your readers over the years and your ability to parse and dissect Wall Street and its politicians in particular has no doubt saved many from foolish mistakes.
This newest project here on TK reflects your values and abilities to unmask these Wall Street hemorrhoids masquerading as human beings for what they are.
The same goes for the conscienceless marketeers of Russiagate and all of their reckless endangerment of life on this planet solely for their pecuniary and power-quest brand of gainful madness they dish up as fodder for their self-edification.
Keep bringing it!
Thanks a thousand times for keeping it---this American life---real.
I worked in financial services for many decades. The last several years I was a risk officer - principally for our offshore funds, where regulators require a risk officer independent of the investment chain of command. Prior to the financial crisis, there were many straws in the wind. While I can claim no clairvoyance I did consult with the two managers in charge of the funds that invested in mortgage securities. They confirmed that the storm was coming. Their dilemma was their funds needed to be fully invested, so I asked what they were doing to prepare. "Well, we scrutinize each security and avoid the ones with NINJA loans in them." NINJA as in "No Income, No Job, Applications". When the yogurt hit the fan, everyone was affected, but the funds run by these two gentlemen did relatively much better than our competitors.
I am retired now and teach part time in a local business school: a course in Ethics and Regulatory Compliance and one on Risk Management. I use the financial crisis as a major case study and this year spent a lot of time on the Archegos debacle to illustrate some key principles of risk management.
The financial crisis was a product of political corruption and chicanery, bad or nonexistent regulation (the Commodities Futures Trading Modernization Act of 2000 forbade the SEC and CFTC from regulating the Swaps market), disintermediation of risk and the consequent green light for rampant greed.
AIG is a great case study in and of itself. Not only were they selling Credit Default Swaps as hedges for risky securities, they were marketing them to bank - especially some European banks - as a form of regulatory arbitrage. Use our CDS's to improve the risk ranking of your portfolio assets and this will help you with your capital adequacy ratios. So, many banks began "improving" their risk profiles by taking on huge exposures to a single dubious American company. AIG in their frenzy to rake in more profits was dilatory about posting collateral for the deals they were making. When the credit rating agencies and regulators started pulling them up short, the demands for collateral outstanding and additional collateral were enough to threaten bankruptcy. When the regulators sat down to contemplate what to do, the opaqueness of the CDS market left them with no idea of what an AIG bankruptcy would do the global economy. Hence the bailout.
There is a lot wrong with the Dodd Frank bill, but one thing it did do was call for regulation and central clearing of Swaps. Oh, and Archegos and the pickle they got into with Total Return Swaps - well the SEC hasn't gotten around to writing rules for those instruments yet.
«The “Rumanian box” ended up being a perfect clarifying metaphor for the mortgage securities scam. Originators and banks were taking the mortgages of underemployed, under-credentialed homeowners»
That happened too, but it is a bit of a myth: the real issue was well employed, credentialed middle and upper-middle class people buying as big a chunk of real estate using as much debt as possible in the expectation that it would endlessly rise in price. If a middle class prosperous family can afford a $300,000 house that is expected to zoom in price to $600,000 in under 10 years, why not stretch to buy a $400,000 or a $500,000 house to maximize the gain?
«feeding them into the “machine” of the securitization process (which pooled the mortgages and used a “tranching” process to create different levels of investment products), then spitting them out the other end as securities. In this way, a junk-rated mortgage could be turned into AAA-rated debt.»
This is also a bit inaccurate: because while the eventual crash of the price of middle class houses caused large losses, the total losses in 2008 were much bigger than the fall in price of housing, and that was because Wall Street had created a lot of "synthetic mortgages", that is derivatives, securities indexed by mortgages instead of backed by mortgages, because there was a big demand for securities related to mortgages, in the expectation that given always rising house prices, they were totally safe.
HUD underwrites bank loans for Reverse mortgages. When default occurs banks toss it back to HUD which outsources it to Reverse Mortgage Solutions. My neighborhood has one where guy committed suicide more than year ago. There it sits rotting away and depreciating nearby properties. RMS won't return calls. I got suspicion this will be next big real estate crash
All cryptocurrency is a pyramid scheme. There is nothing there except a huge energy burning system polluting the world. Bitcon, cryptocurrency is an out of control self-con.
Excellent. This is what you're best at, and what no one else does. Really looking forward to this series.
Top priorities of corrupt Biden administration is not to prevent financial scandals but to try to make sure that the DNC/CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax -- will NOT / will NEVER be fully acknowledged.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say
By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations May 07, 2021
In his big speech last week, President Biden complained about “Russia's interference in our elections” but his intelligence community, led by his appointee Avril Haines, right, says there wasn't any.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say | RealClearInvestigations
The Biden administration is misquoting its own intelligence findings on Russia in what some former U.S. intelligence officials say is a subtle but significant effort to continue to delegitimize the Trump presidency.
Love the graphic, you are doing a great job educating us rubes.
University education has become a hybrid of Big Store, Diploma Mill, and Pig in a Poke.
OMG, you're hitting the jackpot with this one.
Your Racket Key is brilliant!
So 'Right-On!' Matt. You have already compiled and shared so much that is of immediate and long term value to your readers over the years and your ability to parse and dissect Wall Street and its politicians in particular has no doubt saved many from foolish mistakes.
This newest project here on TK reflects your values and abilities to unmask these Wall Street hemorrhoids masquerading as human beings for what they are.
The same goes for the conscienceless marketeers of Russiagate and all of their reckless endangerment of life on this planet solely for their pecuniary and power-quest brand of gainful madness they dish up as fodder for their self-edification.
Keep bringing it!
Thanks a thousand times for keeping it---this American life---real.
Re on location reports, any way you could get into those White House press briefings? Might be interesting and funny.
Love this as a feature, Matt. The graphic is really well done, too. Keep it up, hoss!
Golly. The $5 monthly subscrition doesn't include Useful Idiots? Talk about racket of the week..!
I worked in financial services for many decades. The last several years I was a risk officer - principally for our offshore funds, where regulators require a risk officer independent of the investment chain of command. Prior to the financial crisis, there were many straws in the wind. While I can claim no clairvoyance I did consult with the two managers in charge of the funds that invested in mortgage securities. They confirmed that the storm was coming. Their dilemma was their funds needed to be fully invested, so I asked what they were doing to prepare. "Well, we scrutinize each security and avoid the ones with NINJA loans in them." NINJA as in "No Income, No Job, Applications". When the yogurt hit the fan, everyone was affected, but the funds run by these two gentlemen did relatively much better than our competitors.
I am retired now and teach part time in a local business school: a course in Ethics and Regulatory Compliance and one on Risk Management. I use the financial crisis as a major case study and this year spent a lot of time on the Archegos debacle to illustrate some key principles of risk management.
The financial crisis was a product of political corruption and chicanery, bad or nonexistent regulation (the Commodities Futures Trading Modernization Act of 2000 forbade the SEC and CFTC from regulating the Swaps market), disintermediation of risk and the consequent green light for rampant greed.
AIG is a great case study in and of itself. Not only were they selling Credit Default Swaps as hedges for risky securities, they were marketing them to bank - especially some European banks - as a form of regulatory arbitrage. Use our CDS's to improve the risk ranking of your portfolio assets and this will help you with your capital adequacy ratios. So, many banks began "improving" their risk profiles by taking on huge exposures to a single dubious American company. AIG in their frenzy to rake in more profits was dilatory about posting collateral for the deals they were making. When the credit rating agencies and regulators started pulling them up short, the demands for collateral outstanding and additional collateral were enough to threaten bankruptcy. When the regulators sat down to contemplate what to do, the opaqueness of the CDS market left them with no idea of what an AIG bankruptcy would do the global economy. Hence the bailout.
There is a lot wrong with the Dodd Frank bill, but one thing it did do was call for regulation and central clearing of Swaps. Oh, and Archegos and the pickle they got into with Total Return Swaps - well the SEC hasn't gotten around to writing rules for those instruments yet.
"Racket of the Week" looks good-- I'm sure you'll have no problem finding rackets to cover-- so many rackets, so little time...
«The “Rumanian box” ended up being a perfect clarifying metaphor for the mortgage securities scam. Originators and banks were taking the mortgages of underemployed, under-credentialed homeowners»
That happened too, but it is a bit of a myth: the real issue was well employed, credentialed middle and upper-middle class people buying as big a chunk of real estate using as much debt as possible in the expectation that it would endlessly rise in price. If a middle class prosperous family can afford a $300,000 house that is expected to zoom in price to $600,000 in under 10 years, why not stretch to buy a $400,000 or a $500,000 house to maximize the gain?
«feeding them into the “machine” of the securitization process (which pooled the mortgages and used a “tranching” process to create different levels of investment products), then spitting them out the other end as securities. In this way, a junk-rated mortgage could be turned into AAA-rated debt.»
This is also a bit inaccurate: because while the eventual crash of the price of middle class houses caused large losses, the total losses in 2008 were much bigger than the fall in price of housing, and that was because Wall Street had created a lot of "synthetic mortgages", that is derivatives, securities indexed by mortgages instead of backed by mortgages, because there was a big demand for securities related to mortgages, in the expectation that given always rising house prices, they were totally safe.
The best account of the elaborate fraud that is American capitalism was penned by Herman Melville in his novel The Confidence Man- His Masquerade.
HUD underwrites bank loans for Reverse mortgages. When default occurs banks toss it back to HUD which outsources it to Reverse Mortgage Solutions. My neighborhood has one where guy committed suicide more than year ago. There it sits rotting away and depreciating nearby properties. RMS won't return calls. I got suspicion this will be next big real estate crash
All cryptocurrency is a pyramid scheme. There is nothing there except a huge energy burning system polluting the world. Bitcon, cryptocurrency is an out of control self-con.