Matt Taibbi: The Real Housewives of Wall Street

[cali]

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Sta


America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.

Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."

<snip>

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411

[bluethruandthru]

1. No spending cuts to social programs until this is thoroughly investigated!

Our tax dollars that were fraudulently given out need to be returned with interest. That's what our politicians can use to pay down the deficit that they're suddenly sooooo concerned about!!

[bullwinkle428]

2. This could not be more timely, on the eve of the great "austerity" speech.

[RT Atlanta]

3. K&R

Matt really does some well-researched informative pieces.

[Vincardog]

4. Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? Because the cops and DA work FOR them

[fasttense]

5. Yet another scam for the rich to bleed from us.

A pretty nifty scam for housewives designed by Obama's appointed.

I'm just F'ing sick of how soulless and cruel these uber rich are and how Obama is doing everything to give them cover.

Maybe when they line us poor and elderly up in front of a firing squad because it is more efficient than leaving us to starve to death, maybe then America will wake up.

[girl gone mad]

6. Socialism for the rich.

Many of us warned that this stuff was going on at the time. I'm glad Mr. Taibbi stayed with it.

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. "B-But Tarp Has Been Paid Back!"

Yeah, with taxpayer money :grr:

[patrice]

8. K&R

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

9. Gee, I wonder if this will be the lead story on the NBC

Nightly News tonight???? :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[Vinnie From Indy]

14. G.E. probably got a bundle as well

K&R

[patrice]

10. America is not a meritocracy. It IS a mediocracy. Think what this sort of thing costs our economy.nt

[Laxman]

11. Let Them Eat Cake!

The mentality of the privileged elite never ceases to amaze. Makes you understand why they started beheading people during the French Revolution. Come on folks, why so angry. They're entitled to earn a few extra bucks. You could have done it too if you had the connections, and about $15 million in spare change hanging around. Don't begrudge them their due just because they're smarter than the rest of us.

[Vinnie From Indy]

12. Gee, I wonder if this story will get picked up by the mainstream media?

I wonder how the NY Times feels about getting scooped again and again by Taibbi and The Rolling Stone?

[Vinnie From Indy]

13. K&R

This should be front page material!

Cheers!

[cali]

15. kick

[hifiguy]

16. To hell with pitchforks and torches

it is time for tumbrels and gallows for these swine. :grr: :mad:

[Irritable Liberal]

17. A sort of still-awake Sunny von Bulow with hobbies.

Christy (Mack)is thin, blond and rich — a sort of still-awake Sunny von Bulow with hobbies.

I love the way Taibbi writes. The content is great but he has a scathing way with words.

[WillyT]

18. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[Bushfire]

19. Anybody have photos of the housewives?

DUers should post WANTED photos on the upper east side of Manhattan to shame these ladies into returning the money back to the national debt.