[Micki]

I posted the link elsewhere here but the clip is just too good and too valuable not to have it's own thread.

Gary Ackerman questions SEC about the Madoff debacle and how they could be so incompetent despite having the Madoff fraud handed over on a silver platter years ago and in return he gets arrogant sliding answers. They even go as far as siting executive branch privelige to refuse answering questions.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1021551579

Besides being a hillarious clip it is also a blatant slap in the face by a corrupt organisation. SEC needs to be completely reorganised now and heads need to roll.
Are you Americans here doing anything about it? When is it enough?

[highlander]

What exactly are we able to do? Everyone in congress and the senate are corrupt to the core. We re-elected 90% of them. I guess that means we are just "lying back and enjoying it"
The headline telling of the EU banks holding 25 trillion worth of toxic paper tells me that no bailout is going to be big enough. I guess the key is to keep the sheep fed and watered and hope they don't notice the herd thinning until it is too late.

[Micki]

Not directly related to the clip but I found this funny.
Is media subtly trying to hightlight that Madoff is Jewish?

Maybe I am just picking up on this as I for some time have been expecting another round of anti-jewish sentiment to grow in the wester world.

Anyway Madoff's wife who for some reason withdrew $15M just before the ponzi scheme was exposed was described as co-author of a kosher cookbook. Isn't that really uninteresting piece of information unless you want to highlight that they are jewish?
http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20081212/BUSINESS-US-MADOFF/
In order to not get carried away I'll just file this in the "hmmm, keep that in mind for later" box. But it sure was an odd tedbit of information.

[pedalling_faster]

the US government has made a commitment to bail out 2 of the 3 forms of credit derivatives - mortgage-backed securities and credit default insurance (e.g., the $150 billion for AIG).

i would say, why not let the wealthy investors take the loss on the chin, and if the margin call wipes them out, so be it.

i would also say, it is legitimate to use asset forfeiture procedures against the hedge funds and other financial institutions that engaged in fraud.

the US government has a lot of experience with asset forfeiture proceedings, e.g. using RICO laws to go after large drug dealers.

the hedge funds & investment banks made many trillions "on the way up" - from before 1999 to about 2007.

part of the situation is that these financial products are attached to the "heart of the system" - many large banks have them on their balance sheets. its like a parasite attached to the aorta of a human patient; it's hard to remove the parasite without killing the patients.

i'm not a financial or political genius, these options are obviously known to Obama, Pelosi, etc. Pelosi is so spineless that I would not expect anything from her.

Obviously, at some point, the "we didn't know" pretense can give way to common sense - prosecution for fraud, seizure of assets. If someone steals a $100, they go to jail. If they steal a $billion - and there's no document to prove fraud - the prosecution is harder, and the thief has the $$ moola to pay for lawyers.

the way fraud laws are written, what is needed to prosecute is a document that overtly describes a plan to commit fraud, plus supporting documents - emails related to executing the plan. for example, a Home123 email saying, "these mortages are garbage. but Lehman brothers tells us they can sell them to Bank XYZ." Home123 was a subprime lender that sponsored a NASCAR team, a perfect mascot for Peak Oil & the subprime scams.

I would like to find out to what extent Obama's hands are tied. can someone like Obama or the congresscritter in the video even mention a solution involving fraud prosecution & asset forefeiture, given that it may involve a partial admission that banks like BofA and Citi are teetering ?

the hedge funds etc. made many $trillions on the way up. a logical place to look to pay for $3 trillion worth of repairs to banks that serve Main st.

i understand Jane Sixpack thinking that their congresscritters are "basically honest" and that "democracy will take care of it". but i don't yet understand why someone in Obama's position is not at liberty to initiate asset confiscation proceedings against liable hedge funds - and companies like AIG.

since the top 30 earning hedge fund managers averaged $500 million a year in 2007, there's obviously some assets to confiscate.