S&P payback

Stu

Stu

Town Drunkard
Donor
MBTI
.
Enneagram
.
The US government has launched a civil lawsuit against Standard & Poor's and parent The McGraw-Hill Companies over mortgage bond ratings, the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behaviour tied to the recent financial crisis.
Click to expand...
from today's Irish times

and at cnn they report
S&P could be on the hook for massive damages. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the government had identified more than $5 billion in losses from collateralized debt obligations -- mortgage-related investments typically referred to as CDOs -- rated by S&P between March and October of 2007.
Click to expand...


of course back in '11 when this happened
In a release on Friday announcing the downgrade, it warned that the government still needed to make progress in paying its debts to avoid further downgrades.
“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” it said.
Click to expand...

NYTimes in August of 2011,

When that happened I was thinking how long would it before the gov got its payback

It also makes me think that the Administration did not go after criminal activity related to the recession until after the election.

IS this just the begining?
 
My INFJish feelings tell me we haven't even seen the beginning yet.

Fiscal cliff still hasn't been resolved. It just got put off for two months. According to China's state newspaper "The United States is just buying time". Whatever the hell that means... I'm suspecting Obama will put in place some kind of "New Deal". We will become much more socialist over the next few years to cope with the pain. If we do things right, life will still be good and we can minimize the pain. We will just have to learn to be thankful for the simple things. I actually think it's quite beautiful.

I'm expecting deflation over the next 5-10 years like Japan. But I'm a contrarian by nature, most people are expecting inflation over time. In that case, spend your money, buy shit you can't afford.

It's going to be fascinating to watch it unfold. We are blessed to live at such a pivotal time in human history.

The comforting thing is we have hella good agriculture. Especially in California. So I'm confident everyone will have plenty of food. We just won't have as many material items. Also our infrastructure isn't going to disappear overnight. So that's a plus.
 
Last edited:
This is revenge for the downgrading of the US economy

I'm expecting inflation and lots of it

I also expect the international bankers to be the only people who get wealthier and more powerful
 
[video=youtube;QPKKQnijnsM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM&feature=player_embedded[/video]

This video is making the rounds, it was on my face book page today. I have seen the stats before and a non animated chart but this vid really makes its point.

But it leaves me with a lot of questions

1 how much wealth do individuals need to have a good life?
2 how do the graphs change if you simply not consider the one percent?
3 How does wealth distribution look when you put all the advanced economies into the mix.


Another thing I have been thinking a lot about is where did all that 401 k money that was lost in the financial crises really go. Is there a bunch of post doc in economics who have an answer?
 
The money went to the 1%

The point i've been making on this forum for a while now is that when the perception of the US public (shown in the clip to be currently inaccurate) catches up with reality there is going to be a lot of anger
 
muir said:
The money went to the 1%
Click to expand...
Lookin for a scholarly approach to it, kinda like the way the money from the slave trade has been traced in american families.
 
Stu said:
Lookin for a scholarly approach to it, kinda like the way the money from the slave trade has been traced in american families.
Click to expand...

Oh ok scholarly....here is US academic Prof.Hudson from the university of Kansas explaining it:

[video=youtube;wvOlDlYlOIU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvOlDlYlOIU[/video]

He has lots of other great interviews online explaining how the money has been given to the top 1%

Here's his official site: http://michael-hudson.com/
 
Don't forget the $2.3 trillion dollars that Donald Rumsfeld announced had gone missing from the military budget the day before the world trade centre was destroyed. He is of course part of the corporate elite. One company he has interests in created the sweetener 'aspartame' which is a neuro toxin

or wait....did everyone forget that?

[video=youtube;_rRqeJcuK-A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A[/video]
 
Missing money:

[video=youtube;3kpWqdPMjmo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpWqdPMjmo[/video]
 
Corporate created sugar substitute aspartame:

[video=youtube;pvFRLIjOLOU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvFRLIjOLOU[/video]
 
[video=youtube;VL7V9BnJXO8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7V9BnJXO8&feature=player_embedded#![/video]
 
no bank executives will face charges

Bank of America and the Justice Department have a reached a record $16.65 billion settlement, capping the most sweeping federal investigation into the sale of troubled mortgages by a Wall Street bank since the 2008 financial crisis.
The landmark settlement, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in Washington on Thursday morning, requires Bank of America to pay a $9.65 billion cash penalty and provide about $7 billion in relief to homeowners and blighted neighborhoods.
“The size and scope of this multibillion-dollar agreement go far beyond the ‘cost of doing business,’” Mr. Holder said in a prepared statement. “This outcome does not preclude any criminal charges against the bank of its employees. Nor was it inevitable over these last few weeks that this case would be resolved out of court.”
Click to expand...
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
 
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/08/doj-allows-bank-of-america-.html

Thursday, August 21, 2014
[h=3]DOJ Allows Bank of America to Deduct $12 Billion of $17 Billion Settlement[/h]
By Paul Caron
Share

Wall Street Journal, BofA Could See $4 Billion in Tax Savings From $16.65 Billion Settlement; Parts of Settlement Reached Over Soured Mortgage Securities Will Be Tax Deductible: Bank of America will pay roughly $4 billion less to the government after-tax than the $16.65 billion it agreed to in a settlement over soured mortgage securities, because parts of the settlement will be tax deductible, the bank said Thursday. The bank has already taken some of the savings from the settlement's tax deductions in previous quarters, so the savings won't all come in the current third quarter. But tallying the total tax savings to roughly $4 billion "would be fair," a bank spokesman said. Federal law allows companies to deduct large portions of the costs of settling with federal agencies on their tax returns. But that effectively shifts part of the settlement's burden to taxpayers, and some lawmakers and consumer advocates have expressed concerns that the public can be misled when regulators tout giant settlement amounts that companies aren't fully paying. ... Fines and penalties imposed as part of a settlement can't be deducted, so that knocks out the $5.02 billion in fines Bank of America agreed to pay. But other amounts paid can be deducted as ordinary business expenses—including the $4.63 billion in compensatory payments that Bank of America agreed to pay, and the costs it incurs in providing $7 billion in mortgage modifications for struggling homeowners and other consumer relief. "Criminal and civil fines are not deductible, but pretty much everything else is," said Robert Willens, a tax and accounting expert who has his own firm, Robert Willens LLC. That means that up to $11.63 billion of the settlement would be deductible, depending on how much the bank incurs in costs associated with the consumer relief. With a corporate tax rate of 35%, that suggests savings of $4.07 billion. Bank of America said last month that it expects an effective tax rate of about 31% for the second half of 2014, absent any unusual items, and that would suggest savings of about $3.6 billion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top