Mr Geithner repeatedly stressed in today's hearing and I believe was conflating that a decision to not pay off AIG FPG's CDS counterparties would have overwhelmed the "economy" - massive unemployment, thousands of factories shut, business failures and on and on.
Yet what did the Counterparties do with the payoffs?
When the counterparties got 100 cents on the dollar from AIG - where and to what use was it put? I may be completely wrong here - but I have a feeling that not one cent went to cover ANY of public customers accounts; it's possible, it was used to cover Goldman's and perhaps many others proprietary (for and only for the house) and traders cash compensation first and only.
The Committee on behalf of ALL US taxpayers-
Should ASK EACH COUNTERPARTY:
- WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE MONEY?
- IDENTIFY THE EXACT NAME AND OWNERSHIP OF THE COUNTERPARTY ENTITY?
- AND WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE ABOVE ENTITY?
- AND DID ANY MONIES LEAVE THE ENTITY UPON RECEIPT FROM AIG FPG? NAME SAME.
- AND HOW MUCH OF THE MONEY WAS USED TO PAY OR ENABLE TRADERS' BONUS COMPENSATION?
GS notably, had been for over a year in dispute with AIG over CDS and cash collateral demands - BUT made a business decision, with that very knowledge (and the awareness of the duty to mitigate damages based upon that knowledge in the event it went to litigation). So the usually sure-footed Goldman did what? You see any mitigatin' goin' on? They maintained their long running choice to continue to do business with AIG FPG.
What was it that drove that less-than-Goldman-like ill fated decision? In fact there were only 16 AIG FPG counterparties in the world; is it plausible that Goldman's mythic prescience (and supposed on going due diligence) failed in some regard to avoid what hundreds of other firms saw in AIG FPG?
We need to be reminded that 5 large players, some major Wall St firms were NOT AIG FPG counterparties:
JP Morgan
Citigroup / Smith Barney
Morgan Stanley
Wells Fargo
GE Capital
Berkshire Hathaway
See page 24 of the SIG TARP audit report here for the list of the first unlucky but then very lucky counterparties - courtesy of the US Taxpayer.
http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports/audit/2009/Factors_Affecting_Efforts_to_Limit_Payments_to_AIG_Counterparties.pdf
Thanks to the support from their friends at the Fed and US Treasury past and present.
And dancing in the proprietary house and Counterparties traders' Cash Bonuses galore - but still a total siesta on the Taxpayers' dime.
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