Go read No Banker Left Behind at the NYTimes. Let us recap, shall we?
The bankers, who had all of their bonuses protected and bailed out with our federal tax dollars when they blew up the world because people like Larry Summers argued that it was unfair to violate their compensation contracts, are bearing down on Detroit to pay outrageous sums of money on ill-advised derivatives transactions that will result in innocent Detroit municipal employees forfeiting up to 90% of their pensions.
I blame Obama. Yes, I do. If he had come into office committed to holding responsible the people who lied, conned and irresponsibly gambled away our money, we might well be on the road to real recovery right now. Instead, he had people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner advising him to go easy on the bankers because shoring up the banks was THE most important thing.
Screw everyone else.
What I really regret is that so many former Democrats went off in a rabid frenzy over some stupid birth certificate issue instead of focussing on the real offenses of this White House. So much time and energy wasted over citizenship red herrings and vacations. I’m not sure which is worse. Stupid conservative leaning Democrats or banker lackeys in the Oval Office.
Whichever it is, Detroit’s employees shouldn’t have their lives ruined over it and I have yet to see Obama step up and prevent this unfolding tragedy from taking place. Which only means one thing to the rest of us: if our own pension plans go belly up because of some stupid merger or incompetent pension fund manager or predatory bankers, we’re all equally screwed. No one is going to step up and protect your deferred compensation for all your years of work.
The White House is just going to let the bankers drink your milk shake.
Filed under: General | Tagged: bankers, derivatives, Detroit, Larry Summers, Pensions |
The Confluence 
I cannot help but think there was a Faustian bargain which enabled Obama to weather the citizenship issue in exchange for giving away the store to the bankers and pigs of wall Street. I feel this was not a red herring, but it was his Achilles heel. But the powers that be used this to keep him in line. It is such a bizarre issue that in my research, I think it has much credibility. The fact that it was ignored and mocked so loudly, made me believe it was most likely true. The issue would have totally undermined his presidency if proved. The fact that all those records were sealed is proof enough. You don’t seal those records unless there is much to hide. It is the ammunition needed for the BIG BOYS to keep him in line. I have always felt that the 2008 Primary had a coup that enabled the two people left to run in the general election the same masters. Heads they won, tails we lost.
Perhaps focusing on the citizenship issue was the only avenue available to stop Obama and his minions from doing what they are doing to us on a daily basis. It didn’t work because the media refused to look into it. The word was out. Ignore, mock, ridicule. Those insults work better than anything else. They sure could not use facts.
Sorry, I think the birth certificate issue was a bullshit red herring generated to distract you from actually paying attention to what he is doing and getting mad about it. It’s like a shiny object that you keep falling for. There’s no doubt in my mind that Obama was born in Hawaii after it had become a state.
You’ve been had. There was no there there. And instead of effectively fighting back against the bankers, you’ve just wasted 5 years on a non issue.
I have no patience for that.
The bankers and banker groupies are the ones he is playing golf with on Martha’s Vineyard. In our lifetimes, the financial sector of the economy has gone from 15% to almost 50%. Citizens are no longer required. What the bankers need are debtors. Ultimately,it doesn’t even matter if you can make your payments because they get fees, commissions, kick-backs when they make the loans, when they package the loans and sell them to the unsuspecting buyers and when you go bankrupt, they make money on that also. The vampires need your blood, monthly–and with interest.
Wow. You really don’t understand finance, do you? Detroit was already in deep trouble when they made the derivatives deal. It was supposed to bail them out. The banks got priority because of the risk they were taking.
The city bet that interest rates would rise but they have been flatlined. If they had gone up the city would be making money on the deal. Of course those low interest rates are the only reason that the federal government hasn’t gone bankrupt yet.
Detroit’s public employees are getting screwed, but it’s not the banks that did it. For decades the city government underfunded the pension plan. They did this by grossly over-estimating the interest they would earn.
BTW – The Democratic party has controlled Detroit for the last 40 years.
Wow, you really don’t understand pensions do you? That’s deferred compensation and REAL people we’re talking about. They didn’t voluntarily put their livelihoods on a roulette wheel and many municipal workers are not in the social security system.
When bankers got into CDOs and CDSs in the naughties and lost trillions on dollars of the money they were supposed to be taking care for investors, the government bailed them out and made sure they got their bonuses because their whining was deafening. I expect the Detroit municipal workers to have their employee contracts honored in the same way. Risk should absolutely not be allowed to propagate down to innocent people who had nothing to do with the investment decisions of their management.
BTW, I live in Pittsburgh. The Democrats control this city as well and it’s thriving and beautiful. Working class people are doing well here.
So there.
😛
Shorter Dungie: “Mammon giveth, and Mammon taketh away; blessed be the name of Mammon.” 😈
RD–I have a comment still in moderation in the “I’d be a lot more sympathetic…” thread, which perhaps addresses the mentality of people like Dungie, who blame anyone BUT the parasitic fat cats for the sorry condition of this country.
Rumor has it that the next big city on the edge is Chicago. Michelle Obama’s father was a Chicago cop. The Chicago political machine and Chicago natives like David Axelrod led and fed and pampered Obama to glory. It would be fitting indeed if they were the next ones on the chopping block. Sad and horrible but fitting.
BTW, the one person I slightly know who worked for the City of Detroit is a retiree who spent more than 50 years working for the city of Detroit (from age 18 to his early 70s) including decades as the chief accountant of the Detroit Police Department. His son is a right wing Republican CPA who makes a nice six figure living as a bankruptcy consultant in NYC. The retiree is listed as still living and 101 years old.
No, Detroit’s municipal fate was settled when the auto companies pulled out manufacturing from plants in Detroit to plants mostly in the south (and eventually overseas). There wasn’t much Detroit could do about that. When 60% of the population departs, the remainder is in big trouble.
Obama is faced with a choice for his post White House life. Giving speeches and eating rubber chicken dinners in Black Gospel church basements or tooling around the Caribbean in some Wall Street bankster’s Gulfstream.
Decisions, decisions.
RD, there’s an opportunity here. You may not be aware of it.
Detroit’s troubles may lead to the selling of artworks in the Detroit museum. One work on display there is a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, a work that has been in the news lately, and which I’ve been making a film about.
So…let’s all pool our resources and pick up the Detroit copy when it goes on sale. And then my film can be edited to include a segment proving that Leo himself had a greater hand in its creation than is generally supposed. Its value will skyrocket.
Hey, this is the best get-rich-quick scheme I’ve come up with since I told the boys at Drexel Burnham Lambert about CDOs.