Elliot Spitzer versus Jim Cramer
By SusanUnPC on May 13, 2009 at 1:32 PM in AIG, Bailouts, Bank Bailouts, Bank Failure, Economy, TARP, Toxic Assets, Wall Street
I got bored with fast-forwarding through Hannity last night who devoted an unbelievable 45 minutes (!) to the Miss California non-news story, so I checked out Rachel Maddow. Her guest? The always compelling Eliot Spitzer, whose recent remarks to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria were covered at No Quarter in two posts, the last of which was “Class, Required Overnight Reading on “Toxic Assets”and A.I.G. by Spitzer.”
Today, Morning Joe had Jim Cramer on to put out Spitzer’s fire. Who’s right?
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
versus Jim Cramer:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
So, WHO IS CORRECT? My money is on Spitzer.
Spitzer, by the way, is a regular columnist these days for Slate.com.
His latest column is “Fed Dread: The New York Fed is the most powerful financial institution you’ve never heard of. And look who’s running it.”
And you ALL know who used to run the New York Fed, right? Yes, one Timothy Geithner. Here’s why the New York Fed is so important, and why it is ethically compromised. From Spitzer’s latest column, “Fed Dread“:
A quasi-independent, public-private body, the New York Fed is the first among equals of the 12 regional Fed branches. Unlike the Washington Federal Reserve Board of Governors, or the other regional fed branches, the N.Y. Fed is active in the markets virtually every day, changing the critical interest rates that determine the liquidity of the markets and the profitability of banks. And, like the other regional branches, it has boundless power to examine, at will, the books of virtually any banking institution and require that wide-ranging actions be taken—from raising capital to stopping lending—to ensure the stability and soundness of the bank. Over the past year, the New York Fed has been responsible for committing trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to resuscitate the coffers of the banks it oversees.
Given the power of the N.Y. Fed, it is time to ask some very hard questions about its recent performance. The first question to ask is: Who is the New York Fed? Who exactly has been running the show? Yes, we all know that Tim Geithner was the president and CEO of the N.Y. Fed from 2003 until his ascension as treasury secretary. But who chose him for that position, and to whom did he report? The N.Y. Fed president reports to, and is chosen by, the Fed board of directors.
So who selected Geithner back in 2003? Well, the Fed board created a select committee to pick the CEO. This committee included none other than Hank Greenberg, then the chairman of AIG; John Whitehead, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs; Walter Shipley, a former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, now JPMorgan Chase; and Pete Peterson, a former chairman of Lehman Bros. It was not a group of typical depositors worried about the security of their savings accounts but rather one whose interest was in preserving a capital structure and way of doing business that cried out for—but did not receive—harsh examination from the N.Y. Fed.
The composition of the New York Fed’s board, which supervises the organization and current Chairman Friedman, is equally troubling. The board consists of nine individuals, three chosen by the N.Y. Fed member banks as their own representatives, three chosen by the member banks to represent the public, and three chosen by the national Fed Board of Governors to represent the public. In theory this sounds great: Six board members are “public” representatives. …
Here’s more from “Class, Required Overnight Reading on “Toxic Assets”and A.I.G. by Spitzer“:
“There should have been a very different regulatory framework. Not in the sense that we needed more words in the books. We needed more aggressive voices at the SEC, the FTC, the OCC – this welter of federal agencies — people who came to Wall Street and said, ‘Wait a minute. That leverage is crazy’. … [E]verybody derided leverage in public, but in private, participated to the hilt. … This was sort of a disease that got into the bloodstream and the DNA of Wall Street leadership. … The more traditional, old-fashioned investment bankers — you think of Felix Rohatyn, who said, ‘Wait a minute, guys. This doesn’t work’.
“AIG is at the center of the web. The financial tentacles of this company stretched to every major investment bank. The web between AIG and Goldman Sachs is something that should be pursued. …
“[A.I.G.'s] fundamental accounting structure was wrong. … [W]e brought a case alleging that they had manufactured false, fictitious reinsurance contracts. … [T]he underlying effort was to create an illusion of financial strength that was not there. … [F]our people have been convicted. …
“[A.I.G.'s problems] stemmed from an effort from the very top to gin up returns whenever, wherever possible, and to push the boundaries [to] garner returns almost regardless of risk. …
“When AIG initially received $80 billion — a decision that was the consequence of a very brief meeting of the president of the New York Fed [GEITHNER], the secretary of the Treasury [PAULSON], perhaps Chairman Bernanke and [some say the] chairman of Goldman Sachs — $80 billion, virtually all of it flowed out to counterparties, $12.9 billion to Goldman Sachs.
“Why did that happen? What questions were asked? Why did we need to pay 100 cents on the dollar on those transactions, if we had to pay anything? What would have happened to the financial system, had it not been paid?”
[...]
by Ronald Scott
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