Wow! Dylan Ratigan just had the most amazing exchange with the TARP Inspector General!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

About what a ripoff TARP was to the American public, how banks took the funds and basically gambled with it, the lack of moral hazard, the whole fallacy of "too big to fail", the little or no regulation and/or accountability, the complicity of Geitner, Paulson, how TARP was pretty much analogous to a guy robbing a bank with a machine gun, Dylan went on and on the the TARP Inspector General AGREED with pretty much everything he said! He did not equivocate, justify, try to change the subject, or use any other diversionary tactic. He pretty much could have said "You're right Dylan, the system is completely f!@#ed up."

It was an amazing exchange, really. If you get a chance to watch it, please try to.

I am really getting enthralled by the no holds barred approach of Ratigan.

[KharmaTrain]

1. Dylan's Been A Pleasant Surprise

Considering he came out of the corporate snakepit of CNBC.

TARP only succeeded in preventing a total banking collapse that would have put far more people out of work and wiped out pensions and endowments that millions of others live on. But it succeded at a price and one that the bill is now coming due. Once this health battle is done, the focus needs to turn on reregulating Wall Street and shut down the gambling casino.

[lib2DaBone]

7. Neil Barofsky..."Bail Out Re-payment In Question"

(snip)
http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20091021/US.Bailout.Watchdog/


WASHINGTON — The man who watches over the $700 billion in government money given to banks and other institutions to avert a financial collapse said Wednesday he thinks it's too early to say how much will be repaid to the taxpayers.

Just as the Obama administration prepares to announce a new TARP-like program for small community banks, Inspector General Neil Barofsky said he believes that "it's unrealistic to think we're going to get all of that money back."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I called my mortgage Compnay and my Credit Card Company today.. and told them I wasn't going to pay because it was "Un-realistic"

I told the IRS I wasnt going to pay 'cause it was un-realistic.

Somehow... they ain't buying it.(sic)

Yet our government in Washington can get away with this?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. Yes, that's who it was.

He was one of those guys completely comfortable in the face of uncomfortable facts, a fairly rare commodity in government. He showed a refreshing lack of bluster or defensiveness.

[fasttense]

10. And our useless Democratic government could have bailed out

Wall Street AND made them accountable. Instead they threw money at them and let Wall Street CEO billionaires go back to re-inflate the bubble.

Just think how many hundreds of millions of real middle class jobs could have been created using those same TARP tax dollars. We would be all working and the economy would be robust. True, Wall Street would be very sucky but the real economy would be booming.

Right now we have an understated unemployment problem. Some economists have stated it is as high as 20%. That represents about 26 million people. How many people work on Wall Street? Well, several estimates say it is about 200,000 people.

So we saved 200,000 jobs instead of 24 million. Sounds like Republicon math to me.

[apples and oranges]

2. He's coming across like Lou Dobbs

a lot of disingenuous false outrage

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. I don't think he's disingenuous or faking his outrage.

Lou Dobbs? Please.

[madokie]

4. I think you took a wrong turn there somewhere

best go back and see where you went wrong before you embarass yourself really bad

[Jeroen]

5. apples and oranges n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. Ratigan is the best guy on TV for deconstructing the financial crisis

as well as being of the belief that there's a lot more to come - well, he's right up there with Bill Moyers, anyway.

It's a real novelty to have someone well versed in finance to be asking tough questions to any and all and who is also not afraid to use words like "crime" "theft" "con" "scam" etc.

[kentuck]

9. I am convinced that Obama did not choose Geitner for Treasury.

He was told he who he needed at that position. And he did not question it...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. Who do you think told him to choose Geitner?

I always liked the canard that was passed around at the time that the derivatives, swaps, etc. were so incredibly complex that only a very few people (Geitner, Summers, etc.) understood their complexity.

In reality the opposite was true - they were incredibly simple and stupid. They allowed both participants and uninterested bystanders to bet on outcomes of unstable and unregulated financial products and to "insure" themselves against predictably bad outcomes with an insurance product that was not labelled as an insurance product becuase that would have required reserves and regulation.

We get it. It's not complex. What it is is a finacial swindle - 3 card monte played on the American taxpayers by the same people who set up the game in the first place. I think any good DA good make a good case for a RICO investigation of both our Congress and our financial institutions.

I think the smoking gun would be any institution that knowingly made bad loans, sold them and then bet against the bad loans they themselves made with a credit default swap. Too clever by half.

[NNN0LHI]

13. Is that a gut feeling or do you know something we don't know kentuck?

[kentuck]

15. I think he chose Geithner for the same reason he chose Gates...

Just my gut feeling, but I think he was looking for someone that "knew" the system and Geithner was the number one choice. I think he took the advice of Bill Clinton and Larry Summers. He has looked to the Clinton Administration for guidance, in my opinion.

[merh]

16. Why do you think that?

I've always thought he put Geitner in the job for the same reason that FDR put Joseph Kennedy over the SEC ... "Takes one to catch one,"

[NNN0LHI]

12. Then he throws softballs to some Republican pond scum about ACORN

I don't like this Ratigan schmuck.

Don

[Overseas]

14. K&R -- reminding myself to check the Dylan Rattigan clips later. //nt