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Small banks didn't get TARP money, but mid sized regional banks, such as my bank, Bank of the Ozarks, did, at Treasury insistence, under Paulson.

red herrings to throw off the scent of regulator bloodhounds?

this whole global heist analysis is becoming like an agatha christie whodunit.

and the best de-veilers are right here!

layer by layer, the obfuscatory games are laid bare, and soon the whole world will know if the butler dunnit or not.

was it the colonel with the candelabra?

i still have dreams of paulson in the stocks outside the wall street skyscrapers, getting pelted with defunct 401Ks.

here's beppe grillo's remodded 'animal farm' take on it.
Beppe Grillo's Blog


A gentleman called PIG, is about to go bust. He's got a great idea. In order to survive, he's selling his debts. He calls them State Bonds. Many people are buying them; they only want a low rate of interest and a tiny bit of interest when the capital is returned when the loan arrangement ends. Mr PIG has found the system for living above his means. He continues to get debts and to sell them. His family accounts however get worse and to protect themselves, those who buy his bonds, are asking for a higher rate of interest. Mr PIG is obliged to increase the interest rates. Over time, the situation becomes critical. The number of people buying the debt goes down as they are afraid of the risk. The debt is no longer triple A minusminus, but a triple B plusplus. The time will come when Mr PIG is no longer able to pay the interest. The neighbours of Mr PIG who have lent him most of the money, have nothing to gain by making him go bust. If he goes bust they will lose their money. Thus they offer him a loan with lots of conditions, something they call a "bail out".
Mr PIG is obliged to accept so as not to go bust. When the money from the loan dries up, Mr PIG finds he's paying more interest than before. Those who have lent him money have only gained time and now they are doubly at risk, they can lose both the State bonds and the loan that is the bail out.
Mr PIG, technically a bankrupt, is thus able to raise his voice as though it were he that had lent money to the others. He threatens to restructure the debt. In other words, those who bought his bonds at 100 will see the value halved to 50 and Mr PIG will be freed of half the debt with no one being able to stop him doing so. The creditors, who are ever more worried, don't know which way to turn. In fact, the State bonds, like those of any company quoted on the Stock Exchange, can lose their value. The creditors have one thing in common with Mr PIG, the currency. Once upon a time, Mr PIG used the Drachma, now the Euro. His behaviour is putting at risk the good name of the currency of the virtuous gentlemen that have no debts or few debts. The Euro cannot be compromised. The neighbours can throw out Mr bankrupt PIG from the Euro and see part of their credit go up in smoke for ever or continue to give him finance with one "bail out" after another. Germany and France have about 250 billion dollars in Greek State bonds and because of Mr PIG, the Euro is losing value in relation to the dollar and the yuan. Mr PIG leaves the Euro and his State bonds become waste paper. I would like to find the logic and the moral of the story, but I cannot.

i don't either, unless it's 'the cunning always cheat the weak'.

;(

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 10:36:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
BG:s blog perhaps makes sense if he replaces PIG with "Greece," otherwise not so much.
by kjr63 on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 11:33:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or Ireland, or Portugal. If any one of them publicly defaulted on a significant portion of their debt it would likely take down numerous banks in the EMU core. But the default would likely need to be public in order to prevent selective "extend and pretend" from being continued and to exceed the reach of "regulatory forbearance".  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 10:35:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't see why a default has to be widely publicised, apart from the fact that it would be difficult to avoid publicity.

From the point of view of the PIGS economies, it is actually preferable if a default is "kept in the family" until some time after the fact, so the money markets don't throw a hissy fit and crash their economies. And if German politicians want to bail out German banks and then lie to their public about it, then that's a matter between the German electorate and Mrs Merkel.

Indeed I can think of a lot of excellent reasons we might prefer her to try to keep it under wraps. Not the least of which reasons would be that such a coverup would make her politically radioactive when exposed (as it inevitably must be - you can't hide a bailout on that scale). Sadly, I think she'll prove to be too politically savvy or too ideologically committed to the fiction that Germany holds some sort of moral high ground to let such a default pass unmentioned.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 11:15:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Especially in the USA, but probably elsewhere as well, I see ongoing damage from the fraud based TBTF banking model with its accompanying regulatory and governmental capture. The longer the system runs the more damage it does. So I would prefer a crash NOW to entropy death later. There are so many unpayable debts out there that the best thing would be an event that would take down enough bad banks that the system could not be saved and it would have to be reconstructed. Of course it could well be reconstructed along similar lines, but, at least, there would be an opportunity for something better to emerge.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat May 14th, 2011 at 08:08:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
So I would prefer a crash NOW to entropy death later.

Yes, but a country with a structural import dependence on fuel and food and a foreign primary deficit may view things in slightly different terms. Especially if they have neo-Nazis rampaging through the streets, looking to take advantage of any "national humiliation."

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun May 15th, 2011 at 03:58:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't see why a default has to be widely publicised

It needs to be publicized to further discredit the system and to force recognition and write down of unpayable debts. If bad debts can be written down a better economy becomes possible. Anything that a TBTF is forced to write down is one more former bad debt that they will no longer be able to use in their ongoing attempts to squeeze blood from stones. And if it takes down the TBTF, that is a good thing.

I don't see how anyone other than the elites can benefit from the current situation and I find it surreal that the elected governments of the chief victims, the PIGs, have been turned into the enablers for the continuation of the torture of their own populations. Guess I just don't have the stomach for serial abomination.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat May 14th, 2011 at 08:19:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I recognize that such a "moral" position is totally at variance with what passes for contemporary academic economics, so I don't recommend that any that look forward to employment in that discipline publicly join me in my desire for a collapse. I really don't want it either, it is just that I think it is the least worst long term outcome and offers the best chance for a genuine improvement in governance. But, to paraphrase what Lenin said of the Romanovs: We have had 120 years of financial capitalism. Why not another 120 years?

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat May 14th, 2011 at 08:25:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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