WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, the former financial superstar once lionized for his global crisis-fighting prowess, was scolded Thursday over the mortgage-securities disaster at Citigroup Inc. when he was a top executive there. His claim he didn't know of the risks piling up drew a sharp retort.
"You can't have it both ways: You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch," the head of the panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis told Rubin at a hearing.
Rubin expressed regret. Yet he insisted he didn't know until late in the game, when the subprime mortgage crisis erupted in September 2007, about the $43 billion in high-risk mortgage securities on Citigroup's books.
The Citi trading-desk executives who built up that mountain of risk "acted in good faith and did what they felt was appropriate," Rubin said. He said they thought, as many others on Wall Street did, that the triple-AAA rated securities were safe from default.
So other than losing his good name (if he had one) what punishment does he and his other sleazy cohorts receive for ruining many of our financial and retirement plans? I don't forgive any of them and personally I would like to see them all and their loved ones have miserable misfortune and grief in their private and personal lives.
VIDEO EVIDENCE---CLINTON, RUBIN, RAHM, FRANK, OBAMA'S COMPLICITY: Clinton admin forced banks to make BAD LOANS. Approved by Clinton’s then Treasury Secy, Robert Rubin---now a top Obama economic adviser (recently ousted from his perch at Citibank). Obama is seen discussing his legal and community organizing career; ties in to ACORN and the Clinton administration enforcement of the deadly Community Reinvestment Act.
CSPAN/YOUTUBE | 04.06.98 | NakedEmperorNews
FR Posted Thursday, March 19, 2009 by PetroniusMaximus
VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64&feature=channel
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In 1999 Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had been enacted to ensure a complete separation between (1) commercial banks that accept deposits, and (2) investment banks that invest and take risks. Clinton's ill-advised move prompted the era of the superbank and primed the toxic sub-prime pump. The year before Clinton's repeal, toxic sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending. By the time the credit crunch blew up it was approaching 30%. (According to ex-FanMae board member Edward Pinto, the actual number was over 40%. Pinto claims that FM calculatedly disguised many loans that were sub-prime to falsely appear as prime loans).
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BACKSTORY Candidate Obama expounded on 'Price Signals' to 'Change Behavior'.... In an interview on Iowa Public TV in 2007, Obama advocated sending “price signals” to middle class consumers in order to “change their behavior.” “Price signals” being an Orwellian-Marxist code word for "punitive taxes and fees."
BACKSTORY Obama, Esq, represented ACORN in lawsuits to sue banks into loaning to marginal people. Illegals were never asked for proofs of employment or citizenship---pay stubs, SS numbers, etc. As long as they had a pulse and could write the name of one of their phony identities, they got a loan. Most illegals were scam artists----flipping the home back and forth among immigrant families at higher and higher profits, duping banks at every turn. When they were done looting, the last "homeowner" defaulted and absconded to Mexico with $tens of thousands in cash.........leaving banks (and taxpayers) holding the bag.
Americans found out that toxic mortgages poisoning the global economy (that brought the US economy to its knees) were held by leeches with larceny on their minds, who had no moral integrity......just parsites who never intended to pay back banks.
EXTORTION, SHAKEDOWN, PROTECTION RACKET Candidate Obama aided and abetted SEIU and ACORN’s ‘muscle for money’ protection racket. The strategy involves SEIU extorting ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials, offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by SEIU’s paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.
It began to play out----in the context that candidate Obama's "hope and change" anarchy intended to nationalize entire industries----- banks, auto, healthcare, energy----on a march to socialism, and then communism.
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BARNEY FRANK'S ROLE An SEC complaint claims Freddie Mac circa 2000-02 misreported profits by $$billions to deceive investors ----the self-same scam used by Fannie Mae that skyrocketed executive bonuses.
That would indicate officials at Fannie and Freddie were colluding in ways to bilk the system for personal enrichment. Fannie and Freddie’s PAC, employees and lobbyists donated $4.8M to Congress since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In Obama’s short time in the Senate, $125,000 was poured into his campaign coffers. That’s second only to Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd’s $165,000 longtime total.
In the last 10 years, Freddie Mac spent almost $95 million for lobbyists; Fannie Mae spent more than $79 million on lobbying. In 2006, a record $3.8 million FEC fine was levied on Freddie Mac for illegal political fundraising for a member of the House committee overseeing the corporation. Democrats argue that slide into the abyss began in 1999, when much of the banking world was deregulated under the leadership of Gramm, leading to the financial derivatives that led to the current credit crisis.
FRANK OPINES “The conservative philosophy of deregulation that was dominant for far too long allowed private businesses to make terrible mistakes,” said Rep. Barney Frank, who became chairman of the Financial Services Committee in 2006. But Republicans say President Clinton signed the legislation (which passed the Senate 98-0), and Clinton’s then Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin---a top Obama economic adviser (recently ousted from his perch at Citibank)-----approved.
FRANK'S LOVE BUG Barney Frank protected the mortgage giants and Frank pushed to back risky low-income housing for years. Frank had a conflict of interest because Frank’s live-on partner, Herb Moses, worked at Fannie Mae, helping create affordable housing and home improvement lending programs. The couple broke up in 1988.
Federal regulator OFHEO released a damning report on accounting irregularities at mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae. One critical finding was that in 1998, Fannie misstated expenses in order to meet earnings targets that triggered huge executive bonuses.
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RAHM EMANUEL'S ROLE In Congress, Rahm Emanuel worked to pass a bailout of Fannie and Freddie, cosponsoring the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which also dissolved OFHEO. It moved their regulatory authority to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which took Fannie and Freddie under conservatorship in September 2008. The same act abolished the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) and replaced it with the FHFA. After Mr. Emanuel was named Chief of Staff, the White House denied a Chicago Tribune Freedom of Information Act request for information on his Freddie Mac activities: “The Obama administration rejected a Tribune request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel’s time as a director.
A 2003 report by Freddie Mac’s regulator indicated that Freddie Mac executives had informed the board of their intention to misstate the earnings to insure their own bonuses during the time Mr. Emanuel was a director. But the White House refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request from the Chicago Tribune for those board minutes on the grounds that Freddie Mac was a “commercial” entity, even though it was wholly owned by the government at the time the request was made.
The Ohaha White House, under the influence of Rahm Emanuel, (who controls the US Treasury) is moving a trillion-dollar Treasury slush fund into corruption-riddled companies with no oversight in place. This will allow Fannie and Freddie to continue to purchase more toxic assets from banks, acting as a back-door increase of the TARP without congressional approval.
