The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked (Palast)

[Elspeth]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8336

"This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer...


"Steering," sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called "fraudulent conveyance" or "predatory lending" under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hardy - it was OK now to steer'm, fake'm, charge'm and take'm.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush's regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of "federal pre-emption," Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws...

[KittyWampus]

1. Palast... he always manages to cobble together the work other people do, slap a veneer

of Progressive lingo on top so what he writes will appeal to his target audience, lard the pieces he writes with just enough hyperbole to warrant attention from righteously outraged Progressives and then tries to act as if he's a super-sleuth with heavy, inside sources.

Perfect example comes at the very beginning-
"Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Secretly?

[Lorien]

2. Greg Palast was the ONLY journalist who ever wrote an account of just what

myself and many other Floridians working the election polls in 2000 saw first hand. No other journalist would touch it, but Palast listened to me and others and asked questions. For that I'll always be grateful to him.

[upi402]

16. i agree 100% n/t

[Donnachaidh]

4. So you don't think there were any backroom meetings well before the shit hit the fan?

Wall Street -- one hand handles the stocks and the other hand is covering it's own ass. :sarcasm:

[BlooInBloo]

5. You left off the last stage... Any who point that out are idiotically accused of being....

... OH SO naive.

[Donnachaidh]

3. Spitzer knew who he was going up against -

He should have known his enemies had the means and the connections to dig up ANYTHING dirty in his past, present OR future. So what does the dumbshit do? Grabs a wad of cash with one hand, his privates with the other, and a rather expensive *servicing* blows both his career AND negates all the good he's done in the past. Or could do in the future.

unbelievable. :puke:

[BlooInBloo]

6. That's true - and it doesn't contradict the notion that they were gunning for him....

They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true
They can both be true

[peacetalksforall]

7. Right.

[Elspeth]

8. Interesting how the prostitution threads racked up a lot of posts, but

the probable real story behind what happened to Spitzer doesn't interest anyone.

[Donnachaidh]

9. We've got a fine crop of stupid in this country, don't we?

Would rather drool over the titillating bits of a story, rather than have to face down the hard cold FACT that this country is controlled by an elite willing to do ANYTHING to hang on to that control.

Spitzer was the horsefly bothering the great swollen ass of the wall street aristocracy. Someone called in a favor in government and the dumbass fly landed on a call girl. SPLAT goes the fly. :shrug:

[Elspeth]

10. Best condensed version of the Spitzer saga I've seen

:)

[DainBramaged]

11. I have been screaming this for over a week

A few political appointees of a corrupt Justice Department circumvented the will of the electorate of NY State to GETY a sitting Governor who disagreed with the corporate ass kissing policies of the Booshe administration.

[Elspeth]

12. Sounds about right

:Grr:

[JI7]

13. the appeal of conspiracy theories

don't let any facts, truth etc get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

[DainBramaged]

14. Bumping this sucker for chocolate bunnies

[juajen]

15. This is what happens when men think with their little head.

What a damn shame. He should have seen it coming.