Tag Archives: banksters

Geithner’s Other Ad Hominem Attacks on Barofsky

Posted on May 12, 2014 by William Black | 7 comments

In my first article on Timothy Geithner’s book entitled “Stress Test” I exposed the revealing and disgusting nature of his bizarre ad hominem attack on Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (SIGTARP) for the great sin of providing his law enforcement officers (LEOs) with side arms and protective vests – an action any responsible leader of SIGTARP would make a priority. In this second article I discuss very briefly his other two ad hominem attacks on Barofsky and his staff.

Geithner Damns Barofsky for Lack of Expertise

This attack constitutes further proof of our family rule that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. Geithner complains:

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7 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, Barofsky, Geithner, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

Geithner’s Single Most Revealing Sentence

Posted on May 12, 2014 by William Black | 18 comments

By William K. Black

Timothy Geithner has a great deal of competition for the title of worst Treasury Secretary of the United States, but he has swept the field as worst President of Federal Reserve Bank of New York (NY Fed). Geithner is a target rich environment for critics and he has a gift for saying things that are obviously depraved, but which he thinks are worthy of a public servant.

He did vastly more harm to the Nation as the President of the New York Fed than he did as Treasury Secretary. He was supposed to regulate most of the largest (and most criminal) bank holding companies – and failed so completely that he testified to Congress that he had never been a regulator and that the problem in banking leading up to the crisis was excessive regulation. His statement that he was never a regulator was truthful – but you’re not supposed to admit it, and you’re certainly not supposed to be proud of it. Geithner, Greenspan, and Bernanke are the three Fed leaders who could have prevented the entire crisis by being even modestly effective regulators.

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18 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

Let’s End Politico and Deal Book’s “Competition in Sycophancy”

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Devin Smith | 2 comments

By William K. Black

Politico has joined Deal Book in a “competition in sycophancy.” The contestants are competing to see which can author the most extreme version of a fantasy meme in which heroic Wall Street “banks” are oppressed by “Washington.” I had not believed that any “serious” journalist could compete with Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Deal Book in pounding this meme. Ben White, Politico’s economics reporter, has become my dark horse favorite in the race to the bottom of the “serious” business press with his whitewash entitled “How Washington beat Wall Street.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, gresham's dynamic

What Would It Take To Get Andrew Ross Sorkin To Call For Jamie Dimon To Resign?

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Devin Smith | 10 comments

By William K. Black

I have concluded that the journalists who write for the New York Times’ “Deal Book” are incapable of embarrassment or introspection. I have waited in vain for Andrew Ross Sorkin to make a New Year’s resolution to make 2014 a fresh start. There are scores of Deal Book article that drive a white-collar criminologist and a (real) financial regulator to despair. I focus here on one article by Sorkin on October 14, 2013 entitled “The Bloodlust of Pundits Swirls Around Jamie Dimon” that exemplifies how much harm Deal Book does because of its pandering to the elite financial CEOs who became wealthy from the frauds that drove the crisis, its ethics-free approach to financial fraud, and its analytical ennui. Deal Book could be a national asset, but it is a net liability. This first installment discussing their “Bloodlust” article analyzes Sorkin’s use of the world “bloodlust.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, andrew ross sorking, banksters, jamie dimon

The NYT Implies that Not Prosecuting JPMorgan Proves DOJ’s Vigor

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Devin Smith | 3 comments

By William K. Black
(Crossposted at Benzinga.com)

No one expects Andrew Ross Sorkin’s slavish “Deal Book” lackeys to demand that the elite Wall Street bankers whose frauds drove the financial crisis be imprisoned, but the slavishness to the banks revealed when major news stories emerge continues to irritate if not surprise. A recent embarrassment can be found here.

The “Deal Book” Spinmeisters

The context of the NYT article was the expected settlement between DOJ, various states, and JPMorgan. The spin comes fast and hard, which would be great in cricket (or quarks) but, sadly, exemplifies the national paper of record’s “Deal Book” devotional pages. The “Deal Book” shows that cricket masters can impart very different spins. The first substantive paragraph’s spin is to minimize JPMorgan’s fraud.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged accounting control fraud, Andrew Ross Sorkin, banksters, DOJ, Great Financial Crisis, jp morgan

Will the Chilean People Save the U.S. by Electing Michelle Bachelet?

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Devin Smith | 8 comments

By William K. Black

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. John: 3:20

The effort by corporate CEOs to dominate the global economy and global government is reaching the end-game stage. Corporate CEOs view government and democracy as their gravest threats and are constantly seeking to discredit and hamstring government and democratic decision-making. CEOs are particularly eager to discredit, destroy, or capture regulation and they have enlisted enormous support in both major U.S. parties and many of the world’s dominant parties for these efforts. President Obama has continued and made worse the effort of President Bush to betray our nation, our democracy, and our people through the secret, draft Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. In this first column on TPP I explain that while there is no realistic chance of convincing Obama to repudiate the TPP, there is a chance that the people of Chile will save our democracy and our national sovereignty.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, chagras, chile, obama

How to Prosecute the Elite Bank CEO that Led the Frauds that Drove the Crisis

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Devin Smith | 6 comments

By William K. Black

Step one: Understand the three “control fraud” epidemics that drove the crisis.

Control fraud occurs when the person that controls a seemingly legitimate entity uses it as a “weapon to defraud.” In finance, accounting is the “weapon of choice.” Lenders engaged in accounting control fraud display the four “ingredients” of the fraud “recipe.”

Grow massively by
Making loans at a premium yield that are so bad that they will produce losses
Employing extreme leverage and
Providing only trivial allowances for loan and lease losses (ALLL)

The recipe produces three “sure things.” The lender will report record profits in the near term, the controlling officers will promptly be made wealthy through modern executive compensation, and the firm will suffer catastrophic losses. The recipe is also an ideal means to hyper-inflate a financial bubble in real estate, which can delay loss recognition for many years. Minor variants on this recipe drove the savings and loan debacle and the Enron-era frauds.

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6 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, Control Fraud, fraud

Bank Failures are “Inconceivable” under the Latest Neoclassical Fantasy

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Devin Smith | 8 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

Only theoclassical economics constantly recycles variants of its worst ideas that have proven disastrous when they have influenced policy. Other fields advance because they embrace the scientific method. Theoclassical economists repeat their worst errors because they embrace anti-governmental dogmas that blind them to the inherent weaknesses of the corporate form and limited liability. This represents a dramatic regression in understanding from over 200 years ago when classical scholars like Adam Smith were warning that corporations were inherently criminogenic and likely to produce what we now label “control frauds.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged bank failures, banksters, the great financial crisis, theoclassical economists, too big to prosecute, Tyler Cowen

Sorkin’s Paradox: Elite Bank Officers are “Worse” than “Repugnant” but Never Criminal

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Devin Smith | 9 comments

By William K. Black

This is the third installment in my Sorkin Saga. The saga was prompted by Andrew Ross Sorkin’s (ARS) video in which he “outed” himself as the leader of an undercover effort by the journalists of the New York Time’s “Dealbook” and CNBC to discover and “out” the “criminal element” among the elite bankers. Here is the key passage from his video.

“If there’s one question that I get just about more than any other, ‘So why didn’t anybody go to jail, and did nobody try?’ And there’s an answer to that too.

A lot of people had an incentive to try to find a way to bring not justice, but to put people away. Prosecutors, law enforcement, journalists; it would have been a better story. But for the last five years we’ve tried, all of us have tried, to find that criminal element. And while things happened that were upsetting and frustrating and unethical and immoral sadly, it may not have been criminal.”

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9 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Andrew Ross Sorkin, banksters, Great Financial Crisis, occupy wall street

The Divine Right of Bankers: Sorkin Proves Baroness Orczy Correct

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Devin Smith | 7 comments

By William K. Black

In yesterday’s column I discussed the fact that Andrew Ross Sorkin (ARS) of the New York Times and CNBC has unmasked himself in a video entitled “Two Myths and One Reality” as the scourge of Wall Street who had worked tirelessly for five years to find the “criminal element” that caused the financial crisis.

“If there’s one question that I get just about more than any other, ‘So why didn’t anybody go to jail, and did nobody try?’ And there’s an answer to that too.

A lot of people had an incentive to try to find a way to bring not justice, but to put people away. Prosecutors, law enforcement, journalists; it would have been a better story. But for the last five years we’ve tried, all of us have tried, to find that criminal element.”

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