The bailouts continue

[girl gone mad]

The bailouts continue
By Garrett Johnson, http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/bailouts-continue">The Economic Populist

Most people think that the Wall Street bailouts ended at least a year ago. They would be wrong.

(Reuters) – Increased housing commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers’ total support for the financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around $3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government’s pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.

Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government’s commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.

“Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall Federal support for the nation’s financial system…has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion — the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program — largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases,” the TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, wrote in the report.

So Congress nearly comes to a standstill over $33 Billion for unemployment extensions, but there isn’t even a debate over $700 Billion for Wall Street.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. FHA, GNMA, and the VA are not Wall Street. They are government commitments.

[girl gone mad]

2. The loans are largely created by Wall Street, but backed by the government.

Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. So you'd rather see the US government default on the mortgage insurance or 'loan guarantees' when

people with low-cost FHA or VA loans default? If the US government can't be trusted to fulfill its promises on mortgage insurance, then we can kiss Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance good-bye forever.

[jtuck004]

4. That's not what the poster was commenting on

The contrast was between little to no hesitation in funding Wall Street, who is reaping billions of dollars in profits and bonuses
($36 billion in 2008), vs a comparatively piddling amount to alleviate the suffering of people who are unemployed because of the avaricious and careless actions of the very same investment banks who have obtained a financial windfall of profits on bad bets because of their connections with people in the government, directly from the pockets of the taxpayers. And it is continuing.

Normal business would have been for them to eat those losses, and instead we set aside $14 trillion dollars to fix the problems they created with their actions. This is especially ironic in light of the fact that we could have purchased, outright, every single bad mortgage in the United States and restructured them for less than $13 trillion. Instead we shoveled money into the pockets of quantitative traders and others.

The argument was made, and continues to be relied upon, that "we" as a country needed that to avert disruption in the credit system. Yet today the credit system is nearly dysfunctional, and the only real disruption in the banking system would have been the destruction of Government Sachs and their friends.

Now ...NOW?...congress wants to say they want to hold back on $33 billion because we are spending too much? They need to be called on this. It's not justice.

[westerebus]

7. Well said.

:thumbsup:

[fasttense]

9. $14 Trillion of guaranteed funding either directly or through agreements

for banks/Wall Street/Insurance corporations. Our tax dollars taken out of our pay checks going into the pockets of billionaires and millionaires.

And what commissions do we have investigating this? The only one I know of is the Social Security Commission (better known as the Cat Food commission) that has been packed with wealthy politicians from the RepubliCON tea-bagging parties who want to balance all these outgoing trillions on the backs of Grand Mothers.

And the Democratic party wonders why Americans are blaming them instead of the ones who caused the 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression.

[golfguru]

5. Not you girl, it is congress gone mad n/t

[inna]

6. I was just going to post this...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2010140720100721

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.