Paulson: Crazy Putin Pushed China To Dump Fannie Bonds And Crush The U.S. Financial System

Business Insider ^ | 01/29/10 | Vincent Fernando

[TigerLikesRooster]

Paulson: Crazy Putin Pushed China To Dump Fannie Bonds And Crush The U.S. Financial System

Vincent Fernando | Jan. 29, 2010, 9:59 AM | 3,478 | comment 32

Tags: Economy, Markets, China, Credit Crisis, Politics

Some scary details have emerged from Hank Paulson's memoirs.

Allegedly, it appears Russia may have tried to conspire with China in a bid to collapse the U.S. financial system. They were hoping to sell Fannie and Freddie bonds during a time when the U.S. economy was on the ropes.

This happened back around the Beijing Olympics, when the U.S. was supporting Georgia against Russia in the conflict over Ossetia

[TigerLikesRooster]

Is this allegation Paula son’ fig leaf or real deal? Or it could be both.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Oops Typo:

Paula son --> Paulson

[jiggyboy]

If Paulson is saying it, it’s a lie.

What’s he saying anyway...ah it’s something that would get him off the hook. Imagine that.

[stevem]

Why is he crazy? Who in their right mind would do anything to help prop up the United States house of cards these days? Propping up this idiocy is crazy.

[Three if by government]

I believe every word makes sense to me...

[bruinbirdman]

"Putin Pushed China To Dump Fannie Bonds "

There needs to be a buyer.

A dump means a seller, soon it will be apparent that it is the ChiComs. The Reds will lose a bundle to par, interest rates may rise for a short while then reverse.

In the scheme of things, the Communists don't own enough to cause a worldwide event.

yitbos

[abclily]

Isn’t it George Soros who is trying to maneuver the collapse of the U.S. dollar?

[wmposh]

Greenspan did not understand these credit default swap. No one else did. I heard a former fed chairman say he did not really know what they where talking about. So yes one has to be careful at allegation. One has to keep digging to get to facts and math.

[supercat]

The bonds should have some real value, independent of instant market conditions (there should be some underlying assets). If that real value is above the market price, any entity which tries to dump the bonds will lose money. If the real value is above the market price, dumping the bonds will cause the market to acknowledge reality.

I see no benefit to the public at large from having people pretend that financial assets are worth more than they are. If anything, keeping the market propped up serves to conceal any wrongdoing (and there's certainly been a fair amount of that) until crooks have a chance to get away with their ill-gotten gains.

[wmposh]

In Davos he is tell those people that Obama has the right plan, he is going in the right direction. That plays into global governance which will never work here. They want to control the system. When Obama talks about regulation we say yes some are needed but where and why. He does not understand as you prevent profits from happening Banks from other countries have to take up the slack. profits go overseas. By our actions to put the blame it is BIG government will collapse the US dollar. when people have the right information they will do the right thing. Yes Soro could make a profit if the US dollar collapse, but that would bring down the EU. Why would he do that? That would be a good direct question about his profits and ours

[HardStarboard]

I think you miss the point.

"Russians made a “top-level approach” to the Chinese “that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies".

It never happened - it didn't need to because Fanny and Freddie [GSE's] were insolvent and had to be bailed out without pressure from Russia, China or anyone else.

The reason that they were insolvent is that the Democrats, Frank, Waters, Schumer et al resisted Bush administration attempts reign in their sale of sub-primes with regulation.

There is a YouTube tape of a 2005 hearing where the Demos were saying that the GSE's were just fine, not in any trouble at all, that they should even up the pace of sub-prime sales. Probably scrubbed by now but it made the rounds around election time.

The secondary effect of this was the Banks had to find a way to unload all of this politically inspired crap debt. That Goldman Sachs was good at that is only a small part of the story.

[Eroteme]

I agree Paulson’s a liar and not to be trusted, but even Satan used scripture to lie.

No, this makes perfect sense. The bastard kept this information until he thought he could leverage some personal gain. Sell books, rebuild his image.

[Pollster1]

Thanks to Obama and Pelosi, the Russian-Chinese alliance will have even more leverage if they want to go for it in 2011 or 2012.

[Three if by government]

The Russians goal for 100 years has been to destroy our economy makes perfect sense that they wanted to destabilize our economy and look who we have as president now.

[Cicero]

If it happened, I’m sure that Paulson privately alerted Goldman Sachs so they could increase their shorts.

[pointsal]

Were his lips moving? Was the tongue forked?

Maybe Bernie Madoff could come up with a better story....

[dalereed]

They shouldn't have needed prodding to dump those worthless bonds!

[eyedigress]

Invest now. Obama does not control the market

[hedgie]

OMG! What if they had dumped the agency bonds? That would have made spreads blow out and could have even bankrupted the GSE’s Then the Government and Fed would have had to step in and...oh wait...