Tag: SIGTARP

Weekend wrap-up: 1/30 to 2/3/12

| February 4, 2012 | 0 Comments

Here’s all the great stuff you missed on the Finance Addict this week. And also check out our GIF of the Week after the jump!

  1. Banks to face the RICO Act for robosigning credit cards? While the RICO Act’s usually exercised against organized crime rings, it may be used against banks who’ve supported credit card robosigning.
  2. Germany plays hopscotch over the rubicon. Angela Merkel of Germany is blithely hopscotching over a point of no return.
  3. Shareholder rights again under attack. What will the landscape look like if Carlyle Group wins its battle to erode shareholder rights?
  4. Are we going to own AIG forever? Here’s the thing: AIG is not so sure that we’ll ever get our $51 billion back.
  5. We don’t need no education. Another view of how the banks, the politicians and the press work together to keep in place a status quo favorable to banking interests.
  6. Sometimes the “long-term” never comes. It’s easy to forget the extraordinary, unprecedented amount of assistance being lent to the economy by the central banks.
  7. They *do* exist. A regulator who’s resistant to corporate lobbying? Hallelujah!
  8. Who really pays for the things we love? Many will watch the Superbowl and use our iPhones to share the experience. But if we’re honest we’ll take our wings with a side of guilt.

Continue Reading

Are we going to own AIG forever?

| January 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

Last week I showed you exactly how TARP’s Special Master for Compensation decided to continue paying millions in compensation to the chiefs of bailed out companies. (Short answer: Tim Geithner talked a good game about being tough on pay but then flip-flopped at the first opportunity.)

But here’s the other interesting thing about this saga: AIG’s not so sure that we’ll ever get our $51 billion back. Continue Reading

Weekend wrap-up: 1/23 to 1/27/12

| January 28, 2012 | 0 Comments

Here were the Finance Addict’s top stories this week. Plus, check out our GIF of the Week after the jump!

  1. Davos shocked to hear that poor people exist. When you start hearing the language of Huxley and Orwell on the slopes of the Swiss Alps, then you know that something has shifted.
  2. Trust in business and politics reaches critical point. We don’t really trust corporations or government. Can we reverse this? And if not, then what?
  3. Germany seeks permission to drown. Germany and France want to ignore a key lesson from the crisis and play fast and loose with Basel III.
  4. More tangled tales from TARP. As the Special “Pay Master” for TARP, is Ken Feinberg a legal laureate gone rogue? Or is he being railroaded?
  5. A White House nudge towards strategic default? A 2008 memo to President-Elect Barack Obama contains a counterintuitive endorsement for strategic default.
  6. Trusted advice? Hardly. Dale Westhoff is the Global Head of Structured Product Research at Credit Suisse and apparently the firm’s chief propagandist.
  7. Saying “No” to the yes-men on fiscal stimulus. Does recent research from Virginia Tech shed light on why the fiscal stimulus debate went wrong? Continue Reading

More tangled tales from TARP

| January 27, 2012 | 0 Comments

By Esther17 on Flickr

On February 4, 2009 President Obama stood in the Grand Foyer of the White House and, facing the usual battery of press and camera flashes, said the following:

[I]n order to restore our financial system, we’ve got to restore trust. And in order to restore trust, we’ve got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street. Continue Reading