Friday, May 8, 2009
Government Will Backstop All Funds Required by the Stress Tests
Tim Geithner was interviewed by Charlie Rose yesterday.
Geithner said that the government will backstop the funds raised from private investors used to meet the cash requirements called for by the stress tests. So already, we know that the stress test procedure is not a free market procedure.
Moreover, Rose asked what would happen if a bank couldn't raise the required funds within 6 months. Geithner said that, in that case, the government would just give the funds to the bank.
So not only is the methodology for the stress tests a joke, but the procedure going forward is as well.
3 comments:
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Good post...
ReplyDeleteThe dollar is getting crushed today which is exactly what I would expect considering the idiotic policies of our government.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that you deleted the previous post: Director of National Intelligence Busts Pelosi on Torture, without comment. I've noticed several times over the past few months, that entries have been deleted, without comment. As a regular reader of this blog I would appreciate it if you told us why you delete posts. Especially if those posts had comments already appended. Your commenters deserve an explanation, at least.
ReplyDelete.........
THURSDAY MAY 7, 2009
Director of National Intelligence Busts Pelosi on TortureMany people (including me) have repeatedly pointed out that Pelosi was complicit in torture. Pelosi has repeatedly denied that she was briefed on torture.
But the Director of National Intelligence just busted Pelosi.
As ABC News writes:
Blockquote:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News.
The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding or other special interrogation tactics. Instead, she has said, she was told only that the Bush administration had legal opinions that would have supported the use of such techniques.
The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
The meeting is described as a “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”
EITs stand for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a classification of special interrogation tactics that includes waterboarding.
Pelosi, D-Calif., sharply disputed suggestions last month that she had been told about waterboarding having taken place...
At the briefing, Pelosi did not formally register objections to the interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration. President Obama has said he considers such techniques to be "torture."
[end Blockquote]
"Did not formally register objections" is a bit of an understatement. Specifically, the Washington Post notes that during the briefing on torture for several Congress members, including Pelosi:
Blockquote:
No objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange...
[end Blockquote]
ABC further points out:
Blockquote:
The report also details dozens of other meetings with members of Congress -- though not with Pelosi present -- where the use of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques was described.
The Senate intelligence committee’s chairman and ranking member, Bob Graham and Richard Shelby, were given a briefing similar to the one with Pelosi and Goss on Sept. 27, 2002, according to the report.
On Feb. 4, 2003, a briefing on “enhanced interrogation techniques” for Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., revealed that interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri were taped.
In addition, that briefing “described in considerable details” the techniques used, including “how the water board was used.”
A similar briefing the following day included Goss and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who by that time had become the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, when Pelosi moved on to become minority leader.
Confirmed here