Second Chance to Share What Is Really Going On

Although I'm a regular visitor to George Washington's Blog, I inadvertently missed the helpful post that follows, "Senior S&L Regulator Says Government Engaging in Massive Cover-Up of Economic Crisis: 'The Entire Strategy Is to Keep People from Getting the Facts.'"

However, thanks to reddit, a social news site that bills itself as "a source for what's new and popular online" -- not to mention a frequent stopping point of mine -- I got a second chance to highlight ongoing and reprehensible efforts by those in charge to pull the wool over our eyes.

William K. Black was the senior regulator during the S&L crisis, and an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri (bio).

Black says that massive fraud is what caused the economic crisis. As one example, he explains that everyone involved knew that the CDOs which packaged subprime loans were not AAA credit-worthy (which means that they are completely risk-free). He also said that the exotic instruments (CDOs, CDS, etc.) which spun the mortgages into more and more abstract investments were intentionally created to defraud investors.

Moreover, Black says that the government's entire strategy in dealing with the economic crisis is a massive cover-up:

[They] don't want to change the bankers, because if we do, if we put honest people in, who didn't cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up....

Geithner is ... covering up. Just like Paulson did before him....

These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed....

Until you get the facts, it's harder to blow all this up. And, of course, the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts....

[Question] Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?

[Black] Absolutely....

They're deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don't want the facts. And this is not new. The Reagan Administration's central priority, at all times, during the Savings and Loan crisis, was covering up the losses.

[Question] So, you're saying that people in power, political power, and financial power, act in concert when their own behinds are in the ringer, right?

That's right. And it's particularly a crisis that brings this out, because then the class of the banker says, "You've got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse."

Watch the interview here.

Comments

[M Pais]

Good that you provided a link, but your comments should have featured the fact that Bill Moyers was the "questioner." He deserves credit for the contributions his PBS show has made to the ongoing unraveling of this most criminal enterprise. Bill Black minces no words; Moyers, unlike the craven and complicit MSM, gives him a platform.

[Suzanne]

Let's look to the Populus, who really doesn't mind being lied to?

They know the cost if this thing unravels. We all know that we have lied to other countries, and so do they. So. What now?

The emperor has no clothes? Cliche. after cliche.

Our minds just can't get around this. no one can comprehend. It's too jarring.

Jargon doesn't work, there are no more paradigms, no more myths that can gestalt this.

So--not to be curt, but, is it time that we all believe our lies....and get on with cleaning this mess up.?

[Don]

Finally, some one is asking the question I've been asking all along. How is it, that the very people who were watching the store when it went bankrupt, are now the supposed saviors of it? It defies common sense to such a degree, as to suggest the American people are more stupid than I want to believe. Are a nation of sheep, such that we are led to the edge of a cliff without so much as a sound?

[Scott C.]

@ Suzzane. I think this article fully explains the answer to your question.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KD03Dj02.html

[imapopulistnow]

The Summers revelation is the straw that broke this camel's back. I am no longer proud to be an American. I am ashamed to live in a Country where only the wealthy elite are treated fairly. What a complete sham of a democracy. Sinply disgusting.

[Erich Riesenberg]

It is unfortunate that, somehow, most of the small number of Americans who care about much of anything have been divided into partisan Democrats and Republicans, when the transition from Bush to Obama shows how eloquently the system has been structured to protect a very few.

[whiskey]

Will the PPPIP be the final whitewash? Whitewash, Laundering...I wonder if those derivitives will have a "clotheline fresh" smell once they're through with the PPPIP and all those stubborn stains will be shouted out (that's -we the people- that's doing the shouting).

So yes, as read through Mish, the PPPIP is structured to exclude any outsiders from the game, those that might expose that the book value of someone's Star Wars figurine collection put thru the magic of derivitives into a AAA rated CDO might not be worth 20 billion.

"I have it from a reliable source "They are excluding large (over $25 billion) hedge funds, who would have the sophistication and resources to look under the Kimono and declare with vicious authority that the emperor has no clothes."

They are very emphatically not letting in big boys who had not previously been foolish enough invest in this crap. They only want big boys with a vested interest in propping up bank bondholders.

The only way into the "club" is to have demonstrated prior foolishness in a major way, somewhere along the line."

Hope it's not a major faux pas to quote one blog on the comments of another. So, is the PPPIP gaining any traction now OR is it being floated until it's forgotten, then it will all happen in the dark of night on a holiday weekend?