Geithner must go

Please, President Obama, fire Timothy Geithner today and hire a treasury secretary to fight for the U.S. economy as hard as Geithner fights to protect bankers’ profits.

I know you’re intensely loyal to Geithner and have resisted such calls in the past.

But Mr. President, times and circumstances have changed. For your own good and especially for the good of the country, you should reconsider. You’re in an especially close election and you need to cut yourself loose from the failed policies you’ve pursued for the past four years that have coddled the financial sector at the expense of the rest of the economy.

Your loyalties are with Geithner but his, Mr. President, are with the too big to fail banks, not with the public.

The most recent evidence comes from this Huffington Reports piece which details how Geithner, while president of the New York Fed responded when he heard about the big banks manipulating a key interest rate known as LIBOR when he was chair of the New York Federal Reserve in 2007.

Recently disclosed emails show that while Geithner expressed concerns over the integrity of the LIBOR, or London Interbank Offered Rate, he did little to investigate or stop the manipulation.

What he did to was cut and paste the bankers’ own proposals into his own proposal to the Bank of England about how to address the LIBOR concerns. It should have been an early warning sign of how Geithner and his big bank cronies spoke with one voice – theirs.

The public may not understand just how critical the integrity of LIBOR is, but you do, Mr. President. You know that it’s how it’s used as a benchmark for trillions worth of transactions every day, on everything from complex credit default swaps to credit cards.

You also shouldn’t underestimate the public’s ability to grasp what’s at the root of this LIBOR scandal, which is the same theme that’s underlying JP Morgan London Whale trading losses – that bankers have been manipulating the financial system for their own interests, with your administration either fully cooperating or looking the other way.

Don’t underestimate the ability of the ruthless and hypocritical Republican attack machine to clobber you with those policies even as the Republicans embrace more banker-friendly policies than you are.

They’ll get a good shot this week when Geithner testifies before the House Banking Committee over what he knew and what he did about banks.

The public may not be focused on the LIBOR in the middle of a hot summer, Mr. President, But the scandal is just beginning to wash up on the our shores after causing tremendous damage after it erupted in England, after Barclays Bank acknowledged its own LIBOR manipulation and cut a deal with regulators. Meanwhile the investigation into 16 U.S. banks and their LIBOR shenanigans is just getting cooking.  It could be heating up at the same time as the presidential race.

Mr. President, you have another opportunity to do something that is good politics and good for the country too, and will distinguish your policy on the banks from your opponent’s do-nothing approach.

Get rid of Geithner and begin to chart a new course toward a system not rigged in favor of big bankers and their fat bonuses. We need a treasury secretary who doesn’t measure prosperity solely by the size of bankers’ wealth.

Underwater secrets

Local governments'  have often stirred controversy with their use of eminent domain. While it's supposed to be used for the public good, too often it has been used to profit developers, while the public just feels ripped off.

Still, the idea of local governments using eminent domain as a tool to stabilize home prices in some of Southern California’s hardest hit communities is an intriguing one.

It’s the kind of bold action that’s been missing in the government’s limp response to the foreclosure crisis.

But the scheme that’s unfolding in Southern California’s Inland Empire, rated as the one of the most underwater in the nation, is a step in the wrong direction.

It smacks of politically-connected high-finance types, boasting of their access to politicians as their “secret formula,” wheeling and dealing in secret.

A san Francisco venture capital firm is cooking up a scheme in San Bernardino to use the government’s eminent domain power to seize some underwater mortgages from investors who own them and have been unwilling to offer borrowers principal reduction that would allow them to stay in their homes.

The firm’s idea, apparently, is to for San Bernardino County and other local government’s form a joint powers authority that would allow those government to act together to use eminent domain to seize mortgage loans, not the property, of underwater homeowners who were not behind on their payments at “market value.”

Then, according to the scheme, the firm would find investors to issue new mortgages to the homeowners at that lower, more affordable “market value.”]

The plan was hatched by San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners. That’s the firm originally headed by Phil Angelides, former state treasurer, real estate developer and venture capitalist best known recently for leading a congressionally-appointed investigation into the financial crisis.

After issuing a report highly critical of the banks, Angelides didn’t stump the country to put pressure on authorities to follow up on his report with prosecutions.

He went into the mortgage business himself, swaddling his efforts to make profits from distressed mortgages in good intentions of finding solutions to the foreclosure crisis.

It was Angelides who boasted in a letter to potential investors that his firms’ secret formula was its connections to public officials. Reuters reported that Angelides told potential investors they could generate 20 percent profits.

After Angelides’ involvement in the firm was publicized earlier this year, he stepped aside. Replacing him was Steven Gluckstern, a hedge fund veteran who was one of President Obama’s major bundlers in the 2008 election.

According to published reports, Mortgage Partners would make its profit charging a fee on every mortgage seized. How much will it be paid and how? That hasn’t been disclosed. But according to Naked Capitalism, its sources say that the firm expects to make a 5.5 percent fee on each mortgage ­– paid for by having the government seize the mortgages at a discount and sell them back to the homeowner for a profit.

The most serious general flaw in the scheme is that has unfolded behind the cloak of confidentiality agreements between government officials and Mortgage Resolution Partners, with no public disclosure or debate on the concept or details, giving the whole deal the stink of a sweetheart deal, not a solution.

When the Riverside Press-Enterprise sought written records of communication between county officials and the mortgage firm, they were told there were none.

The use of eminent domain is highly controversial because it has often been justified as benefiting the public when it ends up benefiting real estate developers. In this case, investors who own the mortgage loans have already weighed in opposing the plan. Though the plan’s backers say eminent domain has been used to seize intangible goods, they acknowledge it hasn’t been used to seize mortgage loans before. So investors are likely to challenge the process in court.

But I wouldn’t shed too many tears for the investors, who have stood in the way of principal reductions or any other means of helping homeowners.

Another question raised by the current plan: why is only Mortgage Resolutions Partners being considered as a partner for the joint powers authority? The idea should be put out for an open bid. Maybe other firms would have even better plans and offer a better deal.

And there are plenty of other issues surrounding the plan. Walter Hackett is a former banker who is now lead attorney in the Legal Aid Riverside’s branch near San Bernardino. While he likes the idea of using eminent domain as a tool to stabilize home prices,

he questions why eminent domain would be used to seize mortgage loans – which are more difficult to set a price on – rather than property itself. Seizing the property and paying the investor for the fair market value of the property, rather than the mortgage, would extinguish the old mortgage and the new investors could then issue a new one to the borrower at the market value.

Hackett also questions why eminent domain would be used only on mortgages deemed current, so-called performing loans, rather than including properties that have already fallen into foreclosure that are still owned by investors. “Former owners, or others might be able to afford reduced payments once the properties are priced at market value, rather than at the price of the underwater mortgage,” Hackett said.

Hackett’s unusual background, having been a banker and represented homeowners in foreclosure, would be invaluable in redesigning such a proposal. It should not be left only to the venture capitalists and the county politicians.

I’m not suggesting that local governments shouldn’t find a way to use eminent domain or find other creative solutions to help struggling homeowners. But we also need to stop assuming that when the financiers and politicians go into the back room, they come out with something that’s in our interest – even if they say it is.

We learned from the bailout and the government’s subsequent coddling of the financial industry how the secrecy and lack of transparency undermine trust in both our financial system and our government.

However inconvenient to the bankers and hedge fund honchos, such proposals must be hammered out with full public participation and debate. We don’t need any more secret formulas” brewed with corporate cash and political connections in back rooms with you and me kept out.

 

 

Warming up to the Deficit Commission

Back in 1894, Nobel Prize-winning writer Anatole France made an astute observation:

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

If he was around today, he might update his observation like this:

“In their wisdom, the co-chairs of the deficit reduction commission suggest that the rich and the poor wait until they’re 69 years old to collect their full Social Security pensions and to live with reduced cost-of-living adjustments.”

He might also note that the co-chairs, one a former Republican senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson, and the other former Democratic presidential chief of staff and Morgan Stanley board member Erskine Bowles, think it would be a good idea that both the rich and the poor learned to get with less help Medicare, give up their mortgage interest deduction and pay for admission to the Smithsonian Museum for the good of the country.

This is 21st century America’s contribution to the evolution of shared sacrifice. The rich will have to suffer cuts in their Social Security benefits right along with the poor in order to achieve the greater good of reducing the deficit.

Of course there’s good news: under the co-chairs’ proposal, neither rich nor poor will have tp pay additional taxes on the profits they make speculating on the economy.

Simpson and Bowles’ recommendations are being hailed in the upper reaches of the establishment. David Broder intones from his perch at the Washington Post that the proposals are like “a cold shower after a night of heavy drinking. It’s time to sober up.”

Meanwhile President Obama acknowledged he’s facing “tough choices.”

Translation: he would really, really like to help the middle-class and the less fortunate if only the other bad politicians (and the deficit commission he himself appointed, stacking it with members who have advocated cutting social security) would let him.

The deficit commission chair’s proposals are nothing more than a continuation of the bailout and the financial crisis policies started under the Bush administration and continued under the Obama administration, with the by now familiar cast of winners and losers. These proposals require the middle-class and less affluent to bear the burden of decades of disastrous policies, while those who benefited from those policies continue to avoid paying any costs for the consequences.

Simpson and Bowles are just the latest advocates waging a massive propaganda campaign in an attempt to convince people that Social Security is the main drag on the deficit. While the deficit is a serious problem, it’s not the fault of Social Security. And the deficit is not even the most serious problem facing our economy – it’s high unemployment and the foreclosure crisis. In their proposals, Simpson and Bowles don’t acknowledge that economic reality.

The full deficit commission issues its report in less than 2 weeks. Why not contact them here and let them know what you think? If they don’t want to stop peddling propaganda I know a couple of bridges where their reports could be put to good use, keeping away the cold.

Taking Aim at Wall Street - With Jack Bauer

After a day consumed with the Goldman-Sachs hearings, last night I caught up with the latest installment of  the television show “24.”

Spoiler alert: I’m going to disclose what’s happening in “24, ” which focuses on the life of a mythical high-level super antiterrorism agent, Jack Bauer, who is pitted constantly and single-handedly not only against the wily, relentless terrorists but against the corrupt and inept politicians and government officials who are his bosses, usually at the same time.

I don’t always agree with the politics of “24.” But I find it insanely entertaining and profoundly troubling. It’s also one of the few public entertainments that confronts directly the issues of authority and morality we’ve been grappling with since 9/11.

In the latest episode, Bauer actually goes against his president, to whom he’s previously shown the utmost loyalty, because he finds out she’s covering up evidence of an assassination. She’s doing it for the greater good of course; to promote a fragile Middle East peace agreement.

At some point, Bauer finds that the principle of accountability is stronger than his ingrained loyalty to his president.

Accountability, Bauer says, is so fundamental to democracy that it cannot be compromised.

When one of his former colleagues, now his new boss, hears what he’s scheming, she cautions him not to go against his president. “You’re not thinking clearly,” she says.

“I’m the only one who’s thinking clearly,” Bauer shoots back.

After a day of watching Goldman’s officials studiously avoid answering questions in the Senate, “24” put a grim exclamation point on one of the most infuriating aspects of the financial crisis: the utter lack of accountability the financial industry has borne for how it wrecked our economy, through fraud, ineptitude, greed and recklessness.

The Obama administration has made clear it’s not interested in punishing bankers: for the greater good of repairing  the economy, we’re told,  we don’t want to look backward too closely.  We need to move forward.

Left unspoken are the millions in contributions that Wall Street has lavished on the Democrats, and the web of interconnections between the administration and the financial industry, most notably Goldman-Sachs.

We’re offered the faux accountability in the emotionally gratifying theater of the Senate Goldman hearings, the SEC’s attempt at reviving its abysmal reputation after missing the Madoff and Stanford massive fraud schemes by suing Goldman for fraud, and the limp, clumsy Financial Inquiry Commission led by Phil Angelides.

Which are fine as far  as they go. I hope they provide some impetus to put real muscle into financial reform, and they serve some purpose in reminding people how angry and ripped off they feel.

But let’s not forget they’re mostly theater. For example, the Republican senators took turns with their Democratic colleagues beating up on Goldman for CSPAN, while outside of camera range they get their Wall Street fundraising mojo back.

One of the sharpest critics of the lack of accountability has been Bill Black, a former bank regulator during the S&L crisis, who emphasizes that it was multiple robust criminal investigations that uncovered the widespread wrong-doing at the heart of that financial meltdown.

One official who gets it is Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, aka the bailout, who has raised the possibility of criminal investigations and tangled with the Treasury Department.

Meanwhile the mainstream media  serves up pap about how the mild financial reform proposed by the Obama administration is “the biggest overhaul of the nation’s financial system since the Great Depression.”

That’s just not true. The largest overhaul of the system would be the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had kept federally guaranteed traditional banking from riskier casino-style gambling activities which banks found fabulously lucrative before they blew up the economy. The current reform proposals contain nothing as earth-shattering as that.

Despite happy talk of an economic recovery  that still looks far off to many on Main Street, the politicians are finding the public’s outrage over their handling of the financial crisis is not abating, fueled in part by the political grandstanding.

Like Jack Bauer, we’ve had it with the corruption and the blundering. Public outrage over Sen. Chris Dodd’s close ties to subprime cronies forced him to retire. Conservative Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, facing a tough reelection battle, wrote a tough bill that would regulate toxic derivatives. Then she was forced to give away  her Goldman-Sachs campaign contributions. On Tuesday, 62 members of Congress wrote a letter demanding that the Justice Department, not just the SEC, investigate Goldman-Sachs. And a handful of senators are preparing amendments that would toughen financial reform.

I know “24” is a fantasy but one of the reasons it’s so compelling is the way it embodies and scrambles the desperation of our current moment, and Jack Bauer, armed to the teeth in a stolen helicopter, touched a nerve this week. Accountability is our most important arsenal.

Good Riddance to a Bipartisan

Let's take a closer look at one of the most overhyped buzzwords in politicspeak: bipartisanship.

Especially as it relates to the battle for financial reform, the call for bipartisanship threatens to drown the entire debate in meaningless twaddle.

Take for example the retirement announcement by Evan Bayh, who said he was calling it quits because he just couldn’t take how politically divided the Senate had become. Nearly the entirely Washington establishment, including the press corps went into a mad swoon over Bayh, lamenting the sad lack of bipartisanship.

I shed no tears for Bayh, a member of the Senate Banking Committee who was MIA in the debate over financial reform, and was among those moderate Democrats who was expected to oppose one of the most important proposals: creation of a stand-alone financial consumer protection agency.

Bayh did lead a group of Democrats whose idea of leadership was compromising with Republicans during the Bush Administration. What really got Bayh’s juices going was fiscal discipline and budget-cutting. Now that the Republicans have shown that they have no interest in reciprocating Bayh’s spirit of compromise, he’s got no one to play with in the Senate.

It was left to the astute cable TV comedian, Bill Maher, and a lone blogger on the Huffington Post to identify Bayh, for what he really is: A Democrat who represents corporate interests in the U.S. Senate.

During his 20-year political career, Bayh was a fundraising juggernaut. As far as I can tell, no one in the mainstream media dwelled on the $26.6 million in campaign contributions Bayh garnered, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics. His top contributor was not from Indiana. That would be the financial giant Goldman-Sachs, which ponied up more than $165,000, edging out the drug company Eli Lily for the top spot. The third top contributor was Indiana-based Conseco Inc. an insurance company. Another bailout beneficiary, Morgan Stanley, was right up there too, with more than $81,000 in contributions.

Finance and securities was the second largest industry in contributions to Bayh, outdone only by corporate law firms.

Freed from the constraints of politics, Bayh’s first act after announcing he wouldn’t run again was to stick up for one of his beleaguered constituents – the student loan industry. The administration is proposing to stop subsidizing that industry and loan directly to students. Bayh’s against that, concerned that Indiana-based student loan servicer Sallie Mae will lose jobs.

If this is bipartisanship, it’s exactly what’s wrong with the Senate, where health care and financial reform are now gasping for life, in the stranglehold of supposed centrists like Bayh and another retiring Democratic senator, Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Dodd is also a top recipient of contributions from the financial sector. You have to wonder whether Bayh and Dodd’s next stop will be top lobbying firms, where they can continue to earn top dollar from Wall Street.

We don’t need more compromise with Goldman-Sachs and Sallie Mae under the guise of bipartisanship. Let’s retire all the blather about it along with Bayh. We don’t need more senators like him who do Goldman Sach’s bidding and then piously whine about the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. We need real reform and we shouldn’t settle for politicians who don’t have the guts to fight for it.

Attention Unhappy AIG Employees: Good Riddance

Looks like the top lawyer and other fat cats at AIG, whose salaries are now paid by American taxpayers, are maneuvering to be able to escape limits on their pay. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that a Ms. Anastasia Kelly, the General Counsel of AIG, and four other insurance executives gave notice last week that they were “prepared” to leave by the end of the year if their pay is cut by Kenneth Feinberg, the government “pay czar” who sets compensation levels for companies that got bailout money. AIG got $182 billion in taxpayer dollars. AIG’s top employees want to bust the $500,000 pay cap set by Feinberg.