Veterans of ’90s Bank Bailout See Opportunity in Current One

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

A tight-knit group of former senior government officials who were central players in the savings and loan bailout of the 1990s are seeking to capitalize on the latest economic meltdown, enjoying a surge in new business in their work now as private lawyers, investors and lobbyists.

With $700 billion in bailout money up for grabs, and billions of dollars worth of bad debt or failed bank assets most likely headed for sale or auction, these former officials are helping their clients get a piece of the bailout money or the chance to buy, at fire-sale prices, some of the bank assets taken over by the federal government.

“It is a good time to be me,” said John L. Douglas, a partner in Atlanta at the law firm Paul Hastings and a former lawyer for bank regulators who helped create the agency that administered the last federal bailout, the Resolution Trust Corporation.

Some of these former federal officials, like L. William Seidman, the first chairman of the R.T.C., are serving as advisers — sharing ideas with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama — even while they are separately directing investors or banks on how to best profit from this advice.

“It is an enormous market,” said Mr. Seidman, who has already joined two such potential money-making efforts and is evaluating proposals to participate in a third. “I am enjoying this.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/us/29bank.html?hp

[glowing]

1. Make me puke some more, all the while families are being kicked out of homes,

children's lives and education being deeply harmed, people starving or skipping meds or freezing in their homes.. and these greedy bastards see opportunity. Personally, I'd like to round up all of the 1%r's and their minions and put them in their wonderful prison system and keep them there forever. When will the world's people wake up and realize, there's more of us than them? But its so much more fun to kill one another over little scraps like religions and resources.

[sandnsea]

2. Recommend n/t

[Shardik]

3. Is Seidman related to Gordon Gekko?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/

[Solly Mack]

4. I feel icky now

"bad touch" icky

[Spinzonner]

5. Pigs at the trough